Q&A: How Airwallex solves the treasurer’s historic headache

Amsterdam-based Bart Verweij is the Director of Treasury at Airwallex, overseeing the company's global treasury operations. He's been in this role since June 2024. Previously, Bart was Head of Treasury at Mollie and also spent 10 years at Booking.com building its international banking network. 

As businesses expand globally, managing treasury operations across multiple countries becomes increasingly complex. Airwallex, a financial infrastructure platform, aims to simplify international payments, currency exchange, and global account management. 

Here, Bart explains how the global fintech platform tackles international treasury challenges and why treasurers are embracing change. He shares insights on how the platform revolutionises treasury operations and why finance leaders are switching. Straight from the horse’s mouth.

The following Q&A interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Many finance managers or treasurers often say their banking partners or treasury system isn't ideal, but it's not necessarily broken. What's your response to businesses that have 'learned to live with' inefficient systems?

Bart Verweij: This is exactly what I experience when talking with peers. Many treasury departments rely on legacy treasury infrastructure simply because they're accustomed to it, despite the significant inefficiencies. I have to admit that I maintained this mindset myself until I saw Airwallex's capabilities firsthand.

Businesses often overlook the fundamentals that Airwallex has streamlined remarkably well. Take opening a new locally domiciled account, for instance. With traditional banks, even if you're already a customer in one country, expanding to another market means sourcing and completing dozens of documents, which can take weeks or months. With Airwallex, you can simply open an account with a few clicks.

This might sound basic, but it's transformative for treasury operations. The ease of implementation removes barriers that previously forced treasurers to make suboptimal decisions about their banking infrastructure.

Q: What challenges do businesses typically face when managing international finances without a solution like Airwallex?

Bart Verweij: Without access to local accounts, businesses face a critical dilemma. If you don't open local accounts in each market, you're essentially accepting significant fees for outgoing and incoming payments.

In my previous treasury roles, a substantial part of my role involved establishing an international banking network precisely because we couldn't ask our local partners in, for example, Vietnam to pay into a local EUR bank account. That would mean high and uncompetitive conversion rates, long payment processing times, and fees of US$30–40 per transaction. These costs quickly compound.

The challenge isn't just about making payments – it's equally important that customers can pay you locally. Without local financial infrastructure, businesses either absorb high fees or pass them to customers, neither of which is ideal for growth.

Q: How does Airwallex's platform help businesses optimise their international treasury operations?

Bart Verweij: Airwallex provides local accounts that function as if they're your own accounts in those countries. This gives businesses tremendous flexibility in managing currency positions. You can collect funds locally, hold them in that currency if you have local costs to offset or convert at favourable market rates when it makes strategic sense.

The platform also offers intuitive controls for approval workflows. In legacy banking systems, changing who approves transactions often requires complex setups and bank assistance. With Airwallex, these workflows are easily configurable, allowing treasury teams to adapt quickly as their organisation evolves.

Further, our multi-entity management functionality lets treasurers oversee accounts across different global entities from a single dashboard – replacing the fragmented experience of juggling multiple banking platforms, security tokens, and access credentials.

Q: What would you say to treasurers hesitant to adopt fintech solutions like Airwallex instead of traditional banks?

Bart Verweij: I completely understand the hesitation – I felt it myself before joining Airwallex. Treasury professionals are naturally conservative, and there's a common sentiment that "it’s a safe bet to work together with a traditional bank".

Yet, the banking landscape is evolving rapidly. Many treasurers realise that fintech platforms can offer capabilities that traditional banks cannot, especially for businesses with international operations. Our platform wasn't built on legacy infrastructure with decades of technical debt – it was designed specifically for today's global business needs.

It's about using the right tool for each job, and increasingly, treasurers find that fintechs provide superior tools for many aspects of international finance.

Q: Looking ahead, how do you see treasury management evolving with technologies like Airwallex?

Bart Verweij: We're building towards becoming the central platform for treasury management. The future of treasury management lies in consolidation and flexibility – having a single view across all accounts worldwide, with the ability to move funds instantly where they're needed most. 

As we continue expanding our product offerings beyond foreign exchange and payments into areas like yield-generating accounts*, we're creating an ecosystem that addresses the full spectrum of treasury needs.

The days of maintaining fragmented banking relationships purely due to geographical constraints are ending. The modern treasurer needs tools that match the pace and global nature of today's business environment, and that's precisely what we're building at Airwallex.

*Yield products are currently only available to customers of Airwallex Australia.