Automating financial operations: Igloo Insure’s success story with Airwallex

Introducing Igloo Insure 

If you’ve ever opted for electronics protection when buying gadgets on Shopee or Lazada, you’ve likely interacted with Igloo Insure’s technology.

Igloo Insure (formerly Axinan) is a full-stack insurtech firm headquartered in Singapore. It makes insurance accessible and affordable through a data-driven platform that connects insurers, distributors, and consumers. 

Since 2016, the award-winning startup has facilitated over 600 million policies and protected more than 160 million devices in six markets. But as the company scaled globally, managing payments across multiple currencies, countries, and vendors quickly became a growing challenge.

To keep pace with its rapid expansion, Head of Finance Lau Si Ying turned to Airwallex to digitise and streamline Igloo Insure’s global payments.

The challenge

Disconnected workflows and rising global payment costs

As the company scaled, its finance operations were being held back by fragmented systems and manual processes. Invoice approvals and bill payments were managed without a centralised platform, resulting in missed due dates and delayed payments – placing additional strain on an already lean finance team.

Even after adopting multiple tools, workflows remained siloed. Approvals, payments, and tracking were spread across different platforms, leading to duplicated work, manual reconciliation, and inefficiencies.

Lau Si Ying

Head of Finance at Igloo Insure

“There's a lot of time that gets wasted when two systems don't connect. A team member has to manually transfer data to the bank or our accounting software, adding on to the workload."

At the same time, increasing volumes of cross-border transactions brought high SWIFT fees and unfavourable FX rates. Si Ying explored several finance providers to reduce these costs but found each came with trade-offs – some offered better rates but imposed steep transaction fees, while others required manual rate locking through relationship managers. None integrated with their accounting software, NetSuite, adding further complexity to the team’s financial operations.

The solution 

Today, Igloo Insure uses Airwallex to power its financial operations. In just a few weeks, they streamlined processes, eliminated manual work, and cut unnecessary fees.  

A perfect fit for existing workflows

By leveraging Airwallex’s built-in automation and native NetSuite integration, Igloo Insure streamlined its entire invoice workflow. The finance team can easily upload invoices from both domestic and international suppliers, with Airwallex automatically routing them to the right manager for approval.

Payments are made directly from their Airwallex account, and all transactions are seamlessly synced to NetSuite. Supporting documents, comments, and audit trails are stored in one place – giving the team full visibility into every approval.

“With a single dashboard, I can easily view all the different entities without needing to remember multiple passwords or constantly log in and out,” Si Ying says.  

Savings on international payments and everyday business expenses 

Igloo Insure turned to Airwallex to reduce currency conversion fees and transfer costs. The team now converts SGD to USD at highly competitive rates and makes cost-effective payouts to partners and customers.

“Other providers had much higher transaction fees,” Si Ying says. “With Airwallex, I save about S$100 per cross-border payment.”

The savings don’t stop there. Igloo Insure also benefits when paying for software subscriptions using Airwallex Corporate Cards. Unlike traditional bank cards, these carry no foreign transaction fees. And when payments are drawn directly from Airwallex currency balances, there are no surprise charges on foreign currency spend. 

Moreover, getting started with Airwallex was simple – no complex setup, just instant access to the financial tools Igloo Insure needed. And whenever questions came up, their dedicated relationship manager was there to guide the team and help them get the most out of the platform.

“Even though Airwallex is a fintech, there was a personal touch,” says Si Ying. “The team was great about providing the help we needed.” 

The result 

By switching to Airwallex, Igloo Insure saw real efficiency gains:

• Manually approving, paying, and reconciling invoices used to take about 10 hours per week. Since using Airwallex Bill Pay, approvals can happen in minutes and payments are automatically synced to NetSuite.

• Igloo Insure’s bank partners used to charge S$100 per SWIFT transfer. Now, they use Airwallex’s local payment rails in 120+ countries to save on SWIFT fees.

• Traditional bank cards limited cashback to select spend categories. With Airwallex Corporate Cards, Igloo Insure earns 1% unlimited cashback on all domestic or international payments.

Looking ahead, Igloo Insure plans to integrate Airwallex with its claims portal for more efficient customer payouts. The team also plans to expand its use of Airwallex across Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines.  

For companies weighed down by manual processes, Si Ying offers this advice: “Don’t be afraid to embrace technology. Focus on the possibilities and how the tech can transform the way you work.”

Lau Si Ying

Head of Finance at Igloo Insure

"With partners like Airwallex, businesses can simplify processes, cut out unnecessary steps, and focus on what really matters – running a smoother, more effective operation."

This publication does not constitute legal, tax, or professional advice from Airwallex, nor does it 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.