How SleekFlow saves 99% in bank fees on their international transfers

What does the future of eCommerce look like? For Henson Tsai, the founder and CEO of SleekFlow, it’s all about blending social media and social messaging with the online customer experience. In 2019, Henson launched SleekFlow, an omnichannel social commerce platform, to empower global businesses to carry out full conversational journeys with their customers across SMS, live chat on websites, and popular social and messaging applications.

Save over 99% in fees when transferring money overseas

Headquartered in Hong Kong, SleekFlow runs offices in Singapore and the UK, and works closely with remote engineers from around the world. 

Managing a global workforce, Henson has to process SleekFlow’s payroll duties in multiple currencies, a task that is extremely time-consuming and prone to errors. Depending on where his employees and remote contractors are based, he has to set up the payroll according to their country’s local currency. Before using Airwallex, Henson also faced high TT charges and expensive exchange rates when transferring money overseas through traditional banks, adding up to high costs for his international transfers.

Using Airwallex’s FX and international payment services, Henson is able to pay his global employees directly in local currencies within the same day via local routes, avoiding the high TT charges while enjoying market-beating exchange rates. Unlike many major banks, Airwallex does not charge a batch payment processing fee on international money transfers. This allows Henson to upload all of his payment requests in one go, saving him time and money.

Henson Tsai

Founder and CEO

“By using Airwallex to pay our salaries expense, we are able to save more than 99% in transfer fees. We no longer have to go through SWIFT and it’s as easy as making a local transfer. Also, we can arrange quick batch payments with a $0 fee processing fee – in fact, there are no hidden charges when using Airwallex at all!”

Avoid FX charges with a multi-currency global account

Not only are SleekFlow’s employees located around the world, they also have a global customer base. To streamline their payment process, the SaaS company uses a global payment gateway. This allows their global customers to pay for the subscription services online using their local currencies, such as Hong Kong Dollar, Singapore Dollar, Malaysian Ringgit, and British pound. 

However, there is one major drawback. While the payment gateway accepts payments in multiple currencies, it converts everything back to Hong Kong Dollar before transferring the funds into SleekFlow local bank account. For each customer transaction, the payment gateway then charges SleekFlow a fee of up to 2.5-3% on exchange rates and additional settlement fees, hindering the company from gaining their full profits. 

To avoid the unnecessary FX charges, SleekFlow switched over to Airwallex’s global business account. Using Airwallex’s foreign currency account, SleekFlow can easily open local bank accounts wherever their customers are located, allowing them to receive customer payments directly in their local accounts with no added fees.

Streamline employee expense reimbursement with employee Visa cards

In their day-to-day operations, SleekFlow’s employees often need to make various company purchases, ranging from SaaS subscriptions in USD to business lunches at local restaurants. Previously, their employees had to use their personal credit cards for these company payments and go through a tedious expense approval and claims process to get reimbursed for their money. Using Airwallex, Henson can easily create employee Visa cards online for his employees, so they can directly use their Airwallex business cards for all company expenses, eliminating the lengthy reimbursement process. 

Henson Tsai

Founder and CEO

“Airwallex is also compatible with our accounting system Xero, so we can streamline our entire claims and payment process and minimise the chances of making mistakes.”

SleekFlow’s key to success

Since it was founded in 2019, SleekFlow has acquired over 4,000 global customers, processing over 20 million messages for them each month. To keep pace with the ever-changing eCommerce digital landscape, Henson encourages entrepreneurs and start-up founders to be adaptable to the shifting consumer demands and move fast to these changes.