Pranav Sood, Airwallex's EMEA general manager, says about 93 to 94% of the company's annual transaction volume now runs on local payment rails, with around 70% same-day and 50% instant.
Sood argues currency conversion traps can cost merchants two to 4% more than necessary, making transparent pricing a key test when choosing a payments provider.
Sood says CFOs are consolidating the many fintech services their buyers adopted over the past ten months, while customers increasingly buy programmatic money movement modularly rather than whole product stacks.
Airwallex Says Global Payments Are Turning Local, Instant and Modular
Airwallex argues that cross-border money movement is becoming programmatic, local and modular. Core needs such as collecting, converting and paying out are consistent across regions, so one infrastructure layer can serve both small merchants and large platforms. Hidden conversion costs and fragmented fintech stacks push buyers toward fewer, deeper providers.
Takeaways
Programmatic money movement means payments at scale without manual work. Sood defines it as moving money through APIs or web interfaces rather than manual processes. Airwallex lets businesses collect, hold, convert and send money, serving small firms and large platforms such as Shein and Qantas.
Hidden currency conversion costs hurt global sellers. A merchant like the backpack maker July must convert customer payments into settlement currency and pay suppliers cheaply. Sood says forced conversions, as at UK brand Young Goat, can cost merchants two to 4% more than necessary.
Three trends are reshaping business finance stacks. Companies diversify providers, partly after Silicon Valley Bank's failure. CFOs consolidate the many fintech services bought in recent years. Software firms such as Papaya Global embed payments to defend their margins.
Payments are moving onto local, faster rails. About 93 to 94% of Airwallex's annual volume runs on local rails, around 70% settles the same day and about 50% is instant. Sood points to Singapore and India linking their payment systems.
Customers now buy money movement in modules. Providers once sold whole product stacks. Sood says customers now buy solutions to specific problems, so Airwallex has widened payout, card and acquiring coverage and plans yield and credit products.
Judge providers on depth, not headline coverage. Many buyers are seduced by claims of payouts to many countries. Sood advises checking depth, such as the five partner banks Airwallex uses in the US and whether accounts support direct debit in and out.
Partnerships work when both sides benefit. Airwallex works with over 60 banks and financial institutions and with Xero, Shopify and WooCommerce. Sood says it judges partners on mutual benefit, breadth of coverage and price, since few banks offer strong APIs with high uptime.
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