Payment Service Provider Case Study: Airwallex - Part 1

Airwallex is a financial technology (fintech) platform that provides cross-border payment solutions and financial services for businesses. Founded in 2015 in Melbourne, Australia, it has quickly grown into a global platform that helps companies manage international payments, treasury, and expenses. Though not a bank, Airwallex is licensed and regulated to provide electronic money and financial services in multiple regions including Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Lithuania, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US.

This post is to introduce the most important services that Airwallex provides.

1 Core Financial Infrastructure and Services

Airwallex has developed a robust global financial platform that serves over 150,000 businesses worldwide. The company processed approximately $50 billion in annualized transactions as of 2022 and reached a valuation of US$5.5 billion. Their service offering spans multiple areas of financial operations:

1.1 Business Accounts and Global Money Management

Airwallex provides businesses with multi-currency accounts that function similarly to virtual business accounts. These accounts enable companies to:

• Open local currency accounts to receive funds in 20+ currencies
• Access banking services in 13 major markets, allowing businesses to receive payments like a local entity
• Manage all funds centrally through a unified platform
• Convert funds at market-leading interbank rates with markups as low as 0.2% above the interbank exchange rate

The platform eliminates traditional banking obstacles like paperwork and queues while offering superior global coverage across currencies and markets.

1.2 International Payments and Transfers

One of Airwallex's core strengths is facilitating efficient cross-border payments:

• Transfer funds in 60+ currencies to over 150 countries worldwide
• Achieve remarkably fast processing times with 70% of remittances credited within the same day and 95% of global transfers arriving within the same day
• Pay suppliers and employees globally without excessive wait times or fees
• Utilize local payment rails to reduce costs associated with international transfers

1.3 Payment Acceptance Solutions

Airwallex offers comprehensive payment processing capabilities that allow businesses to:

• Accept payments from both domestic and international customers across 35 countries in Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Americas
• Create localized checkout experiences with pricing in multiple currencies
• Offer various alternative payment methods to accommodate customer preferences
• Hold earnings in their Airwallex wallet to avoid additional foreign exchange fees
• Integrate through multiple options, including payment links, eCommerce platform connections, or custom checkout experiences via APIs

In April 2024, Airwallex expanded its payment acceptance solution to the United States, enabling U.S.-based merchants to accept domestic and international payments while giving foreign merchants with U.S. entities the ability to provide localized payment experiences.

1.4 Corporate Cards and Expense Management

Airwallex's integrated spend management solutions include:

• Multi-currency corporate cards that can be issued instantly
• Customizable controls to limit spending at the card level
• Expense tracking and employee reimbursement capabilities
• Zero fees on international purchases, saving on typical foreign transaction charges

1.5 Bill Pay and Accounts Payable

The platform streamlines bill payment processes through:

• Centralized management of domestic and international bills
• OCR technology that automatically extracts relevant data from uploaded or emailed bills
• Customized multi-layer approval workflows to align with company spend policies
• Direct payment of bills in multiple currencies at competitive FX rates
• Integration with accounting software for faster reconciliation

2 Advanced Financial Technology

2.1 API Infrastructure and Embedded Finance

Airwallex has built a sophisticated API infrastructure that enables:

• Integration of financial services directly into business workflows
• Development of custom financial solutions through flexible API access
• Embedded finance opportunities that allow non-financial businesses to offer financial services
• Global treasury solutions for streamlining payroll and other financial operations

The company's embedded finance solutions are categorized into three main areas:

• Global Treasury: Enabling platforms to provide collection, storage, and disbursement of funds worldwide using 160+ payment methods and payouts to 150+ countries
• Payments for Platforms: Allowing programmatic creation of connected accounts with merchants or customers, automatic fund splitting, and global payment acceptance
• Banking as a Service: Enabling platforms to embed traditional banking products such as accounts, cards, and borrowing within their own offerings

2.2 Payroll Solutions

Airwallex offers specialized solutions for payroll processing:

• Global payroll payment services for international workforces
• Domestic payroll payout capabilities
• Automated and streamlined end-to-end payroll processes
• Business payroll APIs that enable payments to employees worldwide

3 Technological Foundation and Future Direction

Built on robust cloud infrastructure through Google Cloud, Airwallex maintains impressive performance metrics, including availability over 99.95% and latency well below 200 milliseconds. The platform can scale to support up to 50,000 transactions per second.

As of early 2025, Airwallex continues to expand its capabilities with new features such as bulk transfer approvals on mobile, instant transfers via Airwallex Pay, and manual fund capture for Shopline transactions. The company is also pursuing geographic expansion, with recent moves into Latin American markets including Mexico and Brazil.