Airwallex, an international payments service that specialises in low-cost, seamless cross-border payments, has picked London as the location of its European headquarters, and will kickstart its UK operations immediately. having being granted an EMI license by the FCA in November 2018, Airwallex will aim to support these SMEs and their payment needs by allowing them to instantly create Global Accounts with local bank details, access interbank exchange rates and send money through local and international clearing networks to more than 130 countries.
One of the unique aspects of Airwallex is that they’re not a traditional broker adding on an ecommerce unit for SMEs, it’s been built from the ground up specifically for ecommerce and also doesn’t have an army of expensive brokers that have to be paid so can keep costs keen. As a self service platform, SMEs can set up their own virtual bank accounts around the world as they need them, so rather than one per country you can set up one per marketplace in each country if that suits your operations better.
“Our platforms, which have experienced huge growth in Australia and Asia, will help free businesses from many of the traditional barriers that have made international transactions and growth so difficult. Our journey has only just begun in the UK and London; but we know the market is strong – we can already see huge potential for our services.”
– James Butland, VP – European Growth, Airwallex
At Retail Without Borders earlier this month, Airwallex set out their proposition to hundreds of merchants who are all actively selling overseas and exploring new markets and new marketplaces. We caught up with Fletch Novis, Director of Business Development at Airwallex to find out more:
Airwallex have completed a successful series C funding of $100m USD, leading to a valuation at more than $1bn USD.
