By Telecom Lead Team: At the Mobile World Congress 2012, Opera Software announced
the launch of Opera Payment Exchange (OPX) aimed to offer mobile payment
services to users of Opera Mini, the world’s most popular mobile browser. The service
will enable them to carry out mobile transactions securely and simply.

The Opera Payment Exchange will enable payment transactions
for more than 160 million Opera Mini users by acting as glue between content
providers, publishers and mobile billing systems and digital payment gateways,
while building trust with end consumers.

At Opera, it is all about giving the user the best possible
experience,” said Mahi de Silva, EVP for Consumer Mobile, Opera Software.
Mobile payments have so far been a privilege for users of high-end devices in
developed markets. With OPX, Opera is expanding this to all devices, no matter
the location, carrier or payment instrument by giving the stakeholders in the
ecosystem the right technology to carry out the transactions,” de Silva added.

OPX provides APIs that members of the ecosystem can use to
make mobile-payment processing within the Opera Mini browser seamless,
resulting in higher transaction success rates.

The service will also benefit publishers. OPX helps maximize
the potential of their existing billing connections with carriers, payment
instrument providers and payment gateways.

For operators, OPX provides a new revenue stream with
standardized integration, better support and retailing insights based on
carrier billing.

Additionally, for payment providers and payment
gateways, OPX will overcome inconsistent user experience and fear of fraud with
one-click, native support for payment instruments.

Opera has partnered with leading companies like InMobi
SmartPay, Yandex.Money and Bango to make Opera Payments Exchange a ubiquitous
part of mobile payments in many regions, with coverage expanding to other parts
of the globe rapidly in the coming year.

The company is exhibiting the solution at Mobile World
Congress, Barcelona.

Earlier in December, Opera announced
partnership with MediaTek to include Opera Mini into MediaTek’s Runtime
Environment (MRE).

MRE is MediaTek’s middleware technology designed for mobile
developers and application providers to deploy services and content for
smart-feature-phones. This partnership will allow users of handsets powered by
MediaTek’s MRE platform to enjoy affordable Internet experience.

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