How Airwallex and its fintech peers are leading a trillion-dollar payments land grab
They offer subtly different products and target different customers, but payments fintechs like Airwallex, Wise, Revolut and YouTrip are threatening bank dominance and rapidly reshaping global finance.
When it was founded in 2015, Airwallex was a scrappy fintech with a fledgling cross-border payments business. A decade later, it processes USD235 billion ($348 bilion) a year and continues to raise funds at an accelerating valuation, despite alleged red flags around its operations.
Its runaway success places Airwallex among a cohort of unicorns raiding what was once a lucrative foreign exchange (FX) business for the big banks, while rapidly expanding into the broader payments ecosystem.
Collectively, this group — including UK startups such as Wise and Revolut — now processes more than USD1 trillion annually, according to a tally of each company's claims conducted by Capital Brief. In siphoning capital and customers from legacy institutions, they're also reshaping risk across the financial services sector.
Listed on the London Stock Exchange, Wise holds GBP17.1 billion of customer money on its balance sheet — a 29% increase that closely tracks its profit growth. Its latest annual report shows Wise earned nearly GBP600 million in interest on customer balances, keeping roughly three quarters of that sum.
