Global freelance platforms built around international wire transfers or PayPal-style processors quietly extract a meaningful share of a freelancer's earnings through currency conversion spreads and transfer fees — a cost that falls disproportionately hard on freelancers earning in African markets, being paid by clients also in African markets, through infrastructure designed for a different payment geography entirely.
Zuma Freelance settles payouts through the same wallet and mobile-money rails used across the rest of the platform, so a freelancer being paid by a local client isn't routed through an international processor at all — funds move client-to-escrow-to-freelancer entirely within local payment rails, at a fraction of the cost and settlement time of a cross-border transfer.
This is one of the clearest arguments for building payment infrastructure natively for the market you're serving rather than defaulting to whatever international processor is easiest to integrate first. When client and freelancer are both transacting in the same local currency through the same local rails, there's no reason to route that transaction through infrastructure built for cross-border settlement — doing so is pure cost with no corresponding benefit.