KeepCup drives its global ‘reduce and reuse’ mission with Airwallex

If you’re based in Australia, the chances are pretty slim that you haven’t been exposed to the cultural (and environmental) phenomenon that is the KeepCup. This Aussie brand started from humble beginnings, when siblings Abigail and Jamie Forsyth set out to create a disposable cup for customers of their Melbourne sandwich shop, Bluebag. 

With a mission of inspiring the world to reduce and reuse, KeepCup has gone from strength to strength, turning into a movement that’s seen their products become the must-have staple of coffee and beverage-lovers the world over. We chatted with one of KeepCup’s sibling founders, Abigail Forsyth, about how the company uses Airwallex to bring their reusable cup products to their global customer base in a cost-efficient way.

Skipping foreign transaction fees

KeepCup trades in seven countries. By having an Airwallex Global Account, they’re able to say goodbye to costly conversion and transaction fees, as they can receive and hold money from their customers in their preferred currency. 

“Something that’s been really advantageous to us over the years we’ve been using Airwallex is being able to collect money in those currencies and then hold those funds in each Global Account, so we don’t have to pay the expensive foreign exchange rates”, says Abigail. 

“Using Airwallex means we’re able to bypass those fees, which has a great impact on our business. Also, being able to easily just swap around the currencies between our different Global Accounts has been helpful, and has made it much simpler for us to pay our suppliers and staff overseas.”

Borderless cards for borderless business

With a team of 50 based throughout Australia and the UK, Airwallex Borderless Cards make it easy for KeepCup to issue employee and company multi-currency cards to their team members - wherever they are in the world. 

The Airwallex real-time Borderless Card dashboard also makes it a cinch to keep track of staff spending, and with 0% foreign card transaction fees, KeepCup can invest every dollar they save back into their mission. 

“When staff transition into the business, setting up spending cards for them was a real pain when we were just using a traditional bank,” says Abigail. 

“With Airwallex, our staff can easily log their expenses online, which has made the accounting and approvals processes seamless for us - it’s all on your phone and app-based.”

Partnering with Airwallex

At Airwallex, we understand that really knowing our customers and consistently delivering a superior experience is the only way we can fulfil our mission of helping them do excellent global trading.

“Working with Airwallex is a fantastic experience, and our Commercial Finance Manager is actually trying to deepen the relationship at the moment because we find the software so helpful,” says Abigail.

“The business and the way they do things feels very modern, and it just makes it so much easier to get things done. Airwallex’s offerings have also been simple to integrate with our existing systems like Magento and the traditional banks we use in our backend, which is very valuable to us.”

Efficient processes = Less costs

When it comes to advice for other businesses, Abigail says that doing your homework and researching where your money is being spent on the ‘small things’ is vital.

“Inefficient processes can actually have large costs to your team around reconciling and currency conversion. With Airwallex, we limit the potential for human error and also save money on our foreign transaction fees.”

“Try to consider Airwallex within the bigger picture of the financial management of your business, because it’s actually more than just an alternative to a bank; it makes things seamless for you internally, and then you can pass these benefits onto your customers.”