Jack Zhang says Strive offered $1.2bn for Airwallex around the end of 2018, when revenue was just over $2m, and he turned it down.
Zhang predicts Airwallex will build a bigger business than Citibank within the next decade, while stablecoin adoption may take three to ten more years.
Leif Abraham calls current tokenization regulatory arbitrage rather than innovation, arguing a tokenized stock is only a derivative with weak investor protection.
Airwallex's founder rejected $1.2bn to outgrow the big banks
Airwallex and Public are built on the belief that fintech's next winners come from outside the incumbents. Zhang passed on a $1.2bn offer because he saw a market worth more than a hundred billion dollars and a path past the largest banks. Both founders hire outsiders, doubt shortcuts such as stablecoins and tokenized stocks, and expect AI products from fintechs to beat banks.
Takeaways
Zhang refused a $1.2bn buyout to build bigger. Strive offered $1.2bn around the end of 2018, when Airwallex had just over $2m in revenue. It passed $10m in 2019. Zhang saw a market of a hundred billion dollars plus and predicts a larger business than HSBC or Citibank within a decade.
Airwallex runs on its own payments network. Over 95% of transactions route through Airwallex's own network rather than SWIFT, and over 65% are instant. It moves about $200bn annualised, growing close to 100% year on year, and charges customers nothing to move money on that network.
Both founders hire outsiders over banking and big tech veterans. Zhang hired many Citibank bankers early, and they later told him to step down as CEO. Abraham sees big tech resumes as a negative. Zhang wants intelligence, curiosity and the drive to push through walls, and treats an MBA as neutral unless it marks a career change.
Zhang doubts stablecoins are the future of money movement. He says adoption may take another three to ten years. He welcomes the clarity of the US GENIUS Act and names compliance as Airwallex's top priority worldwide, since the company operates across many jurisdictions.
Banks have nearly lost the agentic finance race. Zhang argues banks lack an application layer, which AI agents need in order to act for customers. In his view the contest is no longer between incumbents and fintechs. It is now a race among fintechs.
Abraham calls tokenization regulatory arbitrage, not innovation. A tokenized stock is only a derivative, with weak investor protection and speculative pricing when float is low. Public once offered music royalties under Reg A+ and then shut that offering down.
Airwallex's first five years were hard. Zhang struggled to find product market fit. Launches failed in Hong Kong and twice in the UK before Australia worked on the third try. Both founders describe isolation and a healthy pessimism that keeps progress feeling incomplete.
Bets for the year ahead
Abraham expects AI to reinvent how people engage with any product. Public's Generated Assets turns a prompt into an investable index.
Zhang calls a business operating system Airwallex's biggest product this year. It consolidates a company's banking across a dozen banks, and he aims to launch before year end.
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