Plum Guide streamlines its funds management with Airwallex

Founded in the UK in 2016, Plum Guide curates remarkable homes in over 500 locations and offers guests superior short-term rentals in 30 countries, with 60 new destinations launched in 2024.

Plum Guide’s expert vetting, which combines human curation with deep learning, ensures that only the best homes make it onto its platform. Think of the Plum seal of approval as the Michelin Guide for holiday rentals. 

Plum Guide offers incomparable transparency, highlighting essential details guests need to know before booking, ensuring customers an exceptional stay every time. 

With a dedicated 24/7 care team and an 'excellent' Trustpilot score, Plum Guide holds a unique position in the market.

The challenge

The travel industry, by nature, is borderless, requiring companies to transact in many different currencies.  

With its global customer base, Plum Guide receives funds from guests in multiple local currencies. In addition, it needs to service host payouts quickly in their local currency. This requires Plum Guide to make frequent FX transactions. 

Before using Airwallex, Plum Guide met this need by using multiple traditional banks and brokers to manage funds and make FX transactions. However, the rates they were getting weren’t competitive, and operating this way became unmanageable.   

Plum Guide needed a cost-efficient, end-to-end solution that could support its treasury across multiple geographies and currencies and be simple to administer, as Jonny Tamir, Plum Guide's CFO, explains: “We needed a tech-driven solution that would enable us to make fast and cost-effective FX transactions, so we could facilitate fast payouts to hosts in local currencies.” 

This challenge became even more pressing in light of the travel company’s plans to expand into 60 new destinations in 2024. When scaling into new markets, it’s vital to have the right financial infrastructure in place. Plum Guide’s existing treasury wasn’t scalable, so Jonny and his team searched for a better solution.

Jonny Tamir

CFO of Plum Guide

“We were using multiple traditional banks and brokers to manage our money overseas. But this was becoming really hard to administer and we were paying a lot in FX fees.”

The solution

Airwallex’s market-leading financial platform helps businesses scale globally faster, unlocking new opportunities and facilitating growth without limits. 

Plum Guide now uses Airwallex’s Global Treasury and cost-effective international transfers to operate more efficiently and scale its operations faster. 

• Plum Guide can now quickly and easily service global collections and payouts through Airwallex’s powerful Global Treasury infrastructure. This has streamlined Plum Guide’s financial operations, saving the company considerable time and allowing it to focus on scaling the business.  

• Airwallex’s low, transparent FX rates have saved the travel company significant conversion and transaction fees, helping to strengthen the business’ financial position. 

• Using Airwallex for Global Treasury instead of multiple FX brokerages has streamlined Plum Guide’s financial reporting.    

Jonny Tamir

CFO of Plum Guide

“Airwallex has elevated our financial operations to new heights, empowering us to seamlessly complete FX transactions and deliver exceptional services to our valued guests and hosts.”