July 2024 Summaries

Airwallex announced several product updates across business accounts, payments, spend management, and APIs, including the general availability of Airwallex Yield for Australian entities, which offers variable target returns on AUD and USD balances through investments in JPMorgan money market funds without lock-up periods, subject to investment risk and product disclosures. It also introduced Interac e-Transfer collections for Canadian-dollar Global Accounts for businesses with US or Canadian entities, with broader access planned from August 1, 2024. Its updated Shopify payments app now supports currency switching, local payment methods, and streamlined checkout information, while Afterpay is scheduled for phased availability in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the US, and Canada. Upcoming spend-management features will allow multi-condition approval workflows for expenses, reimbursements, and bills using factors such as merchant categories and accounting data. For API and embedded-finance customers, Airwallex expanded FX capabilities by allowing businesses to choose between locked quotes and live market-rate conversions within one account, as well as add percentage markups to customer FX rates.

eCommerce payment processing enables online merchants to securely accept and settle customer payments by connecting payment gateways, processors, acquiring banks, and issuing banks. Transactions typically involve encrypted payment-data capture, authorisation by the customer’s bank, order fulfilment, and later settlement into the merchant’s account, with records retained for reconciliation. Providers must support security measures such as SSL encryption, PCI DSS standards, and 3D Secure authentication while accommodating payment options including cards, digital wallets, bank transfers, cryptocurrency, buy now, pay later services, mobile payments, prepaid cards, and invoicing. Key business challenges include cross-border fees and local payment preferences, fraud prevention, and the complexity of technical integration and maintenance. When selecting a provider, businesses are advised to assess scalability, customisation, security, settlement speed, and integration capabilities, while payment service providers such as Airwallex, banks such as HSBC, and ISOs such as Clearly Payments offer different models for facilitating transactions.

International travel is projected to exceed pre-pandemic levels in 2024 and reach an estimated 1.4 billion cross-border trips by 2028, creating growth opportunities for online travel agencies, tour operators, and destination management companies while increasing the complexity of global payments. A survey by Airwallex and Skift found that cross-border payments account for more than a quarter of revenue for 75% of surveyed travel executives, yet many report that outdated payment systems harm efficiency and margins. Travel payment processing encompasses both collecting customer payments through gateways and processors and paying global suppliers, with transactions requiring authorization between acquiring and issuing banks. Key challenges include currency conversion, foreign-exchange fees and volatility, fraud prevention, regulatory hurdles, fragmented reconciliation, and managing local payment preferences. The text argues that travel businesses should adopt unified, multi-currency payment platforms with transparent FX pricing, rapid local payouts, automated reconciliation, strong security, and integrations with booking and accounting systems. It presents Airwallex as an end-to-end provider offering accounts, payment acceptance, transfers, virtual cards, and financial management capabilities across numerous countries and currencies.

eCommerce payment gateways securely capture, encrypt, and route customer payment information to processors and banks for authorisation and settlement, helping online businesses accept cards, digital wallets, and other methods. They differ from payment processors, which coordinate the transaction among merchants and financial institutions, and come in hosted, self-hosted, API-based, and local-bank-integration forms that vary in setup complexity, checkout control, security responsibility, and regional suitability. Gateways can improve security through encryption, tokenisation, fraud detection, and compliance support, while streamlined checkout options, local payment methods, and multi-currency support may reduce abandonment and support international sales. Potential drawbacks include transaction, conversion, and chargeback fees; technical outages; and limited payment-method or currency coverage. Businesses are advised to compare costs, security and PCI compliance, available payment options, integrations, scalability, and support when selecting a provider. The material presents Airwallex as a global payment and processing provider offering integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento, more than 160 payment methods, like-for-like settlement, fraud prevention, and international regulatory licences.

A 2024 Skift and Airwallex survey of 473 travel executives across seven markets found that the expected growth in cross-border travel is increasing pressure on travel companies’ payment and financial operations. Respondents identified outdated systems, regulatory compliance, foreign-exchange volatility, fraud, supplier payouts, shrinking margins, and multi-currency reconciliation as major obstacles; more than two-thirds said payment complexity affects efficiency or margins, 67% cited FX volatility as complicating cross-border payments, and 70% reported losing significant time reconciling finances across markets. The report notes that travel agencies commonly use four to six payment vendors, which can create delays and operational fragmentation, while 90% of executives said upgrading payments or financial-operations technology would be a priority within the next year. It presents Airwallex’s unified platform as a potential solution, citing its capabilities for accepting local payments, managing multi-currency accounts and supplier payments, automating reconciliation, handling FX exposure, and supporting international expansion.