A message from our Co-founder and CEO

On my first trip to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, I was reminded of what it felt like in the early days of Airwallex. I was introduced to a crowd of the world’s successful leaders, many of whom had never heard of Airwallex before, and I was humbled to join global CEOs, government leaders, investors, customers and some of our most important partners to understand the state of the world. 

And despite conversations that focused on the current fragmented world and challenges of today’s economic environment, I came out energized, invigorated and excited for what’s to come in 2023 and beyond.

No doubt, markets are still concerned about recession, and businesses are navigating volatile markets, but a clear opportunity has emerged. What we’ve learned from the past few years during the pandemic is it’s these moments in time where Airwallex’s role in the global scene is even more important. We are the ones that can help businesses - from SMEs to larger enterprises - to continue to operate, grow and help them reach new heights, anywhere around the world.

Why? There is a systemic shift in businesses operating online and globally post COVID, and a clear lack of innovation in financial services to support them – this is where the best of technology can address the needs of this new breed of businesses.

Airwallex is focussed on empowering modern global businesses and this is what we have planned for 2023. 

• Enhancing our infrastructure and platform. We are accelerating our investments in the core of our business to build the world’s best global financial infrastructure. We are developing new products that improve global money movement, and are expanding our reach into markets where we see opportunities and demand including across Canada, Japan, Latin America and the Middle East.

• Enabling a delightful product and customer experience. We have a suite of products from payments, treasury management and cards & spend management, to API integrations for those who require more customization, or want to build their own financial service products on top of our global financial infrastructure. Still, there is more to be done! We are obsessed about the experiences of our customers, so we are making efforts this year to minimize friction and maximize efficiencies in our products and services for our customers.

• Building a healthy partner ecosystem. Identifying the right strategic, financial and tech partnerships gives us access to a much broader network of businesses that complement our products and services, and allows for us to scale at pace. This ultimately benefits our customers, enabling them to operate more seamlessly.  We are excited that we are already partnering with today’s modern businesses including the likes of Navan (formerly TripActions), Stake and Papaya Global, as well as financial services operators like Visa, MasterCard and JP Morgan, and will continue to introduce more partnerships who share Airwallex’s value, and who propel the digital economy forward.  

• Automating and improving the reliability and security of our infrastructure and systems. Today, we have expanded our back office operations to 13 locations around the world, allowing us to provide global 24/7 operational support. We are constantly improving and streamlining processes to enable greater efficiencies, while maintaining our compliance standards. This will continue to be a core focus for us in the year ahead, and as we continue to protect the information and systems of our operations, maintaining the principles of confidentiality, integrity and availability.  

• Growing our winning culture while attracting and retaining the best talent. Airwallex has a winning culture and we want to invest in the best people who align with our values. There’s a tsunami of experienced talent from other tech companies of late, and we want to attract them because good people are what helps bring our vision to life. We are hiring across all our core markets across all functions, and by year end, we are targeting to hire up to 500 people globally. 

Our plans for 2023 are ambitious. Last year, we processed close to US$50 billion in annualized transactions, and doubled our number of monthly transacting customers across all the markets where we operate. This year we will achieve even more. Our strong balance sheet, focussed vision and nimble business model has enabled us to maintain a steady and consistent growth trajectory. We aim to continue that growth, and live up to our mission and purpose to empower modern businesses to grow without borders, and to connect the entrepreneurs, business builders, makers and creators with borderless opportunities in every corner of the world.