How Ginger leads a successful digital transformation with Airwallex

Founded in 2008, Ginger is a fashion brand that promotes Hong Kong designs through collaborating with different local creators. When the pandemic hit, their founder Ken Ma took their brick-and-mortar business online to adapt to the changes in the retail industry. 

To accomplish the update in their business model, Ginger switched over from traditional banks to Airwallex to better suit their needs for running an eCommerce-focused brand. The whole process of opening their Airwallex business account took less than 48 hours, making it a truly seamless transition. 

Today, Ginger no longer relies on the services of traditional banks as Airwallex offers a one-stop platform for all their needs.

Challenge 1: Expensive foreign exchange rates and transaction fees when making overseas payments via traditional banks

As a homegrown brand that champions local talents, Ken works closely with many Hong Kong designers to create Ginger’s designs. In the last few months, a number of these designers have relocated overseas, which presents a royalty payment challenge for Ken as he needs to transfer money internationally to pay them.

In the past, Ken faced expensive foreign exchange rates and transaction fees when making overseas payments via traditional banks. He also found that there is a lack of transparency with many of these online banking platforms and that they are inconvenient and difficult to use.

Solution & Results: Airwallex helps minimise 99% of transaction fees for overseas payments

Using Airwallex transfers function, Ken can directly pay his overseas designers without having to go through the SWIFT network, saving up to 99% in international transaction fees.

Ken Ma

Founder of Ginger

“Since using Airwallex, we basically don’t have to use traditional banks anymore. From receiving and sending payments to expense management, Airwallex is our one-stop solution for accounting and finance."

Challenge 2: Ginger relied on a heavily manual process of expense management

Before using Airwallex, Ginger relied on a heavily manual process of expense management. For every single business expense they made – from placing printing orders on E-Print to sending off overseas deliveries at the post office and paying for social media ads – employees used their personal credit cards or asked Ken to pay for the spending. To get reimbursed for their business purchases, the team had to first download their card statements from the bank, and then export them to a spreadsheet at the end of each month for accounting purposes. Ken had to go through the submitted spreadsheet and pay each employee back – a time-consuming and inefficient process.

Solution & Results: Airwallex helps cut down 90% of time spent on expense management

By using Airwallex for handling and reporting their expenses, the Ginger team is able to free up valuable time from dealing with tedious expense claims to focus on growing the business. After creating an Airwallex business account for Ginger, Ken is able to immediately create Visa cards for his employees online and use the expense management functions.

Ken Ma

Founder of Ginger

“We applied for Airwallex Borderless cards right away and they helped us minimise 90% of time spent previously on tracking expenses and reimbursing employees.”