February 2022 Summaries

Effective expense management helps businesses improve visibility into spending, maintain policy compliance, reduce fraud risk, and increase productivity by limiting manual processing and errors. The guidance recommends building a dedicated finance team as a company grows, defining clear workflows for submitting and approving expenses, setting budgets and documentation requirements, and using secure payment methods such as assigned physical or virtual corporate cards. It also emphasizes detailed spending policies that specify reimbursable categories, limits, and card-use rules, alongside consistent rejection of unauthorized or inappropriate claims. Automated expense-management tools can streamline receipt capture, approvals, tracking, reporting, reconciliation, and compliance, while integrations such as Airwallex Expenses and Xero are presented as ways to centralize these functions and provide real-time oversight of company spending.

Airwallex’s February updates introduced ABA file support for batch payroll and supplier payments in Australia, virtual Company and Employee cards in the United States, physical Visa employee cards in the United Kingdom, and Singapore dollar Global Accounts for receiving payments. The company also added configurable card-spending email notifications, Android transaction alerts and Global Account funding capabilities, and Apple Pay and Google Pay compatibility for cards in Hong Kong. Other improvements include more competitive exchange pricing for Indonesian rupiah and Philippine peso conversions and customizable deposit confirmation letters in English and Mandarin. Airwallex also announced upcoming Expenses tools intended to improve expense oversight and accounting integration, alongside planned NetSuite integration for bill payments, transaction syncing, and live balance feeds.

Airwallex’s co-founder and CEO identifies attracting and retaining top talent as a central challenge for the fast-growing fintech startup, arguing that its success, reputation, and US$5.5 billion valuation help make it competitive in a crowded hiring market. The company highlights its rapid valuation growth, investor support, and ambition to increase its value further, positioning employee equity through ESOPs and RSUs as a key way for staff to share in that growth. Airwallex says nearly 100 employees are paper millionaires and recently offered eligible employees an opportunity to exercise and sell part of their vested options, potentially helping them meet personal financial goals such as housing, education, debt repayment, or savings. While emphasizing the financial benefits of ownership, the CEO also stresses that culture, meaningful impact, sustainable compensation, benefits, and professional growth are essential to employee satisfaction and long-term retention.

An Airwallex employee reflects on moving to London shortly before the first COVID-19 lockdown and describes enjoying the city’s people and travel opportunities despite repeated restrictions. They joined Airwallex because of its globally diverse workforce, collaborative culture, and exposure to varied customer businesses, ranging from local Scottish fishing sellers to major software companies expanding into Asia-Pacific markets. They value colleagues’ openness in sharing expertise across regions, believe career growth comes from being surrounded by people who encourage improvement, and emphasize that successful sales depends on long-term customer relationships rather than simply closing contracts. Outside work, they enjoy travel, hiking in the Scottish Highlands, and scuba diving, including shark swimming and cave diving in Belize. Their productivity-focused morning routine includes exercise, coffee, and beginning important work early, while they define success as happiness resulting from achieving personal goals.