WorldFirst vs Airwallex: Compare on fees, features, and benefits

Running a business requires fast, efficient, and secure international payments, whether it's collecting customer payments or paying suppliers. This is where fintech providers like WorldFirst and Airwallex come in. Both offer multi-currency accounts and global transfer services to businesses around the world. In this article, we will compare the fees, features and benefits of WorldFirst and Airwallex to help you make an informed decision on which platform best suits your business needs.

What is WorldFirst?

WorldFirst is an international payment service provider, specialising in global transfers and foreign exchange solutions for businesses. Founded in 2004, WorldFirst delivers wide global payout coverage along with competitive FX rates. They also offer solutions for paying Chinese suppliers and a multi-currency account to manage different currencies in one place. However, WorldFirst does not provide services like expense management or a payment gateway, positioning it more as a cross-border payment provider than a comprehensive financial platform.

What is Airwallex?

Airwallex is an end-to-end financial operations platform that offers extensive services to help businesses simplify their cross-border payments. Serving businesses of all sizes, we provide solutions for multi-currency business accounts, high speed transfers, foreign exchange, and more. Airwallex’s main differentiator is our suite of tools that not only facilitate international payments, but also supports your financial operations as you grow. This includes features such as expense management, corporate cards, and online payment acceptance.

Compare WorldFirst vs Airwallex

Use our table to compare the fees, features, and benefits of WorldFirst and Airwallex.

Compare key features between WorldFirst and Airwallex

Multi-currency business accounts

WorldFirst and Airwallex both offer multi-currency business accounts, allowing businesses to send, receive, and hold payments in different currencies. WorldFirst offers local currency accounts in 22 currencies, as well as a multi-currency account that supports 10 currencies in one account. On the other hand, Airwallex offers multi-currency accounts in 23+ currencies. They are all held in the same wallet, giving you full visibility and enabling you to easily manage different currencies in one place. Your currency accounts will come with local bank details, so you can collect and hold currencies in different countries. When you receive funds in a foreign currency like USD or HKD, they won’t automatically get converted back to SGD, saving you unnecessary conversion fees.

FX and global transfers

When it comes to currency conversions, both WorldFirst and Airwallex offer more competitive rates than traditional banks. WorldFirst charges a mark-up of up to 0.6% above its exchange rate for all major currencies while Airwallex offers FX conversions at 0.4% above interbank exchange rates for major currencies, and 0.6% for all other currencies.

Using Airwallex and WorldFirst, you can make payments to your global business partners and sourcing platforms. Airwallex offers fast and secure transfers to 150+ countries, with 90% of funds arriving within the same day and nearly 65% arriving instantly. Our platform has partnered with local payment networks to provide free transfers to 120+ countries, allowing us to bypass the SWIFT network for faster and more cost-effective transfers. In comparison, WorldFirst offers free transfers via local payment networks in USD, EUR, GBP, CNH, HKD, MYR, THB, AUD, and NZD, with 80% of funds arriving within the same day.

WorldFirst fees, explained

WorldFirst charges the following fees for FX and transfers:

• Global transfers: S$1.3 for each transfer going through local payment rails (available only for 9 currencies), and starting from S$6.7 per SWIFT transfer.

• Payments to Chinese suppliers: 0.8% fee for each transfer to sourcing platforms including 1688.com and TaoWorld.

• Currency conversions: Up to 0.6% fee for major currencies including USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD, JPY, and CNH.

• Payment acceptance: WorldFirst does not offer payment gateway or payment links for accepting online payments.

Airwallex fees, explained

Airwallex offers a simple and transparent pricing to help you grow your global business. Main fees across our diverse range of services include:

• Global transfers: Free for all transfers going through local payment rails in 120+ countries, and S$20-35 per SWIFT transfer.

• Currency conversions: 0.4% above interbank exchange rates for major currencies including AUD, USD, HKD, CNY, JPY, EUR, GBP, CAD, CHF, NZD, SGD, and 0.6% for all other currencies.

• Payment acceptance: 3.3% plus S$0.5 for each payment by domestic cards and wallets, and 3.6% plus S$0.5 per international card payment. S$0.5 plus payment method fee per transaction using selected 160+ local payment methods, such as WeChat Pay and GrabPay.

• Multi-currency debit cards: Airwallex offers employee and company cards with no international transaction fees and unlimited 1% cashback on all spending.

Compare additional features between WorldFirst and Airwallex

• Accept payments in 160+ methods with Airwallex, across 180+ countries. Unlike WorldFirst, which lacks payment gateway services and requires linking with third-party gateways, Airwallex offers a streamlined payment gateway with flexible integrations like eCommerce plugins, hosted pages, and embedded elements. This setup allows customers to pay directly, reducing cart abandonment and eliminating unnecessary conversion fees by holding funds in your Airwallex account, making it easier to pay suppliers without double currency conversions.

• Payment links. While WorldFirst does not offer support for payment links, Airwallex does. Payment links are an easy way to request payments from customers without having to integrate a payment gateway or set up an online store. Simply embed Airwallex’s Payment Link into your invoice or share it with your customer via email, social media, or messaging apps to receive payments.

• Bill pay service. Although WorldFirst offers automated payments and options to custom payment authorisations, it does not come with a full bill pay solution. Airwallex’s Bill Pay enables you to upload bills, manage invoices, and reconcile your account all in one place, streamlining your bookkeeping and payment process.

• Expense management. Airwallex offers an in-built expense management solution to help you automate your bookkeeping process, which isn’t a feature that WorldFirst provides. Using Airwallex’s expense management system, you can manage corporate card spending and employee expenses all in one place, ultimately allowing you to save time and reconcile your accounts faster.

Accelerate your global growth with Airwallex

Airwallex serves as an all-in-one financial operations platform for your business.

While WorldFirst offers global transfers and multi-currency accounts for businesses, they fall short for companies seeking a more comprehensive solution to manage their financial operations effectively.

Using Airwallex, businesses can seamlessly operate across borders, benefitting from a wide range of services from international payments to corporate cards, expense management systems, and payment gateway. 

Airwallex also provides more cost-effective international transfers by leveraging local payment networks in 120+ countries. Combined with our transparent pricing, businesses can save time and money as their scale, focusing more maximising growth and less on financial logistics.

Sources

For more information on Airwallex, visit Airwallex Business Account and Airwallex pricing.

• https://www.worldfirst.com/sg/pricing/

•  https://www.worldfirst.com/sg/product/pay/pay-business-partners/ 

• https://www.worldfirst.com/sg/product/manage/integrate-accounting-software/

• https://www.worldfirst.com/sg/product/collect/get-paid-by-marketplaces/ 

This publication does not constitute legal, tax, or professional advice from Airwallex nor substitute seeking such advice, and makes no express or implied representations / warranties / guarantees regarding content accuracy, completeness, or currency. If you would like to request an update, feel free to contact us at [[email protected]]. Airwallex (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (201626561Z) is licensed as a Major Payment Institution and regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.