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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
A new partnership between North Dakota-based Cornerstone Bank and Buy Now Pay Later company Credova is the latest example of how bank-BNPL partnerships are becoming increasingly common in financial services. Per the agreement, Cornerstone Bank will do business as Noka and will provide loan origination for Credova, which specializes in BNPL solutions for the outdoor recreation, farm, home, and ranch markets.
“This is the next step in our company evolution, to partner with Cornerstone Bank, a pillar in the banking community,” Credova CEO Dusty Wunderlich said. “It’s not often you find a bank with a nearly 100-year history be so nimble and forward thinking, but that’s exactly what we’ve discovered in Cornerstone Bank.”
One of the ten largest financial institutions in North Dakota, Cornerstone Holding Company, the parent company of Cornerstone Bank, is a $1 billion financial institution with 11 locations in North and South Dakota. Headquartered in Fargo, Cornerstone offers its customers access to business and personal loans, deposits and cash management services, and both online and mobile banking.
“This exclusive agreement furthers our vision of being who people turn to when they are making important decisions about their money,” Cornerstone Bank chairman Gary Petersen said. “Cornerstone Bank and Credova share very similar cultures and approaches to doing business, making this relationship a great pairing. Both organizations will benefit from each other’s areas of expertise.”
Founded in 2018, Credova recently relocated its headquarters from Nevada to Bozeman, Montana. The move, according to Wunderlich, reflected a desire to base operations in “a location that echoed our values and allowed us to continue to lead an outdoor lifestyle.” The POS financing platform offers a virtual card and extended installment financing along with its “Pay in 4” BNPL program that will allow consumers to divide their purchases into four, zero-interest payments. Available as either an on-site or an in-store integration, Credova’s financing platform has enabled merchants to realize a more than 3x increase in AOV (average order value) compared to other payment methods, a more than 51% increase in overall sales volume, and a more than 72% increase in conversion rates. Credova includes 3H Tactical, Big Tex Outdoors, Broadheads and Bullets, and Cedar Pet Supply among its most recent brand partners.
Sustainability-as-a-Service company ecolytiq has announced a partnership with Visa-owned, European open banking platform Tink that will bring personalized impact footprint calculations and other pro-sustainability solutions to banks, financial institutions, and fintechs. The technology, which helps encourage customers to shift their behavior toward more sustainable choices in terms of spending, will be available initially in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) and eventually expanded to other, larger markets in Europe.
“ecolytiq’s solution was created with the ability to quickly scale, because we know that global warming needs exponential climate action enablers,” ecolytiq CEO and co-founder Ulrich Pietsch said. “Tink is a strategic partner with a proven track record for enabling banks and fintechs to deliver the data-driven digital solutions their customers want and need. ecolytiq is the next-generation of these products.”
Ecolytiq’s products include ecoAware, which uses country-specific calculations to determine a customer’s personal environmental impact based on their bank transactions; ecoEngage, which helps bank customers determine ways to reduce their environmental impact via feedback loops, footprint analytics, and peer group comparisons; and ecoAction, which enables bank customers to offset their environmental impact via donations to ecolytiq’s certified offsetting partners. ecoAction allows individuals to compensate 100% or more of their carbon footprint, and ecolytiq plans to soon add ESG investment funds as a donation destination as well as the ability to select a green energy provider with its ecoSwitch solution.
An alum of Finovate’s developers conference, ecolytiq demonstrated its technology at FinDEVr 2021 earlier this year. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Berlin, Germany, ecolytiq has already forged partnerships with Visa, FinTecSystems, challenger bank Tomorrow, and Worldline. Over the summer, the company won recognition in the Impact Shakers Awards in the “Education” category.
Two-time Best of Show winner Tink, based in Stockholm, Sweden, most recently demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage at our European conference in 2019. The company’s open banking platform handles more than one billion API calls a month; supports more than 3,400 bank and financial institution integration partners; and reaches more than 250 million bank customers across Europe. Tink’s products help institutions confirm account ownership and verify income; provide up-to-date, standardized and categorized transaction data; offer a fully embedded payments experience to boost engagement and conversion, and enable firms to build smart, intuitive personal finance management solutions. In addition to its partnership with ecolytiq, Tink has also recently embarked upon collaborations with French payments service provider Lemonway and German PFM app Placons.
“The combination of Tink’s transactions product and ecolytiq’s sustainability expertise creates a valuable proposition for financial institutions and fintechs across the DACH region to offer services that better measure and help reduce carbon footprint,” Tink Regional Director for the DACH region Cyrosch Kalateh said. “We look forward to extending this partnership in the future, helping ecolytiq to expand at speed across Europe on our open banking platform.”
While some European fintechs are exiting the U.S. market, consumer payment services firm Klarna is doubling down. The Sweden-based company announced it is adding its Pay Now option to its U.S. payment services.
The Pay Now tool does exactly what it implies. Instead of using Klarna’s signature buy now, pay later (BNPL) payment structure, it allows users to pay immediately and in full at retailers where Klarna is accepted. This move offers U.S. shoppers more options when paying with Klarna at the point of sale. Users can now pay in full using Pay Now or pay over time with Pay in 4 and Pay in 30 solutions which allow users to split a purchase into four interest-free payments or pay over the course of 30 days, respectively.
“Consumers continue to reject double digit interest rates and fee-laden revolving credit, while simultaneously seeking more choice, control and flexibility in how they shop and pay both online and in store,” said Klarna Co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski. “With the introduction of ‘Pay Now’, Klarna now offers U.S. consumers the choice to pay immediately and in full, alongside our sustainable interest-free services.”
As a result of adding the Pay Now option, U.S. retailers can now offer Klarna users a more well-rounded payment experience. By offering the option to pay in installments or pay immediately, consumers will be more likely to choose Klarna as a payment option regardless of whether or not they want to use a BNPL tool or pay in full immediately.
Klarna also announced it will launch its physical debit card to the U.S. market. The company wasn’t specific about timing but said it plans to introduce the new product “very soon.” Klarna refers to its debit card as a “tangible extension of the Klarna app experience” because it allows users to pay for their purchases over time and connects to the Klarna app to help users track their purchases. The card is also integrated with Klarna’s loyalty program, Vibe, which offers users rewards, deals, and discounts.
The past year has been quite an active one for BNPL companies. Klarna almost doubled its U.S. customer base this year, now reaching 21 million customers. “By launching ‘Pay Now’ and introducing the Klarna Card in the US, we are continually developing our services to meet consumers’ changing needs,” added Siemiatkowski.
Across the globe, the company counts 90 million active customers in 19 countries who make two million transactions per day at Klarna’s 250,000 merchants, including big brands such as H&M, IKEA, Expedia Group, Samsung, ASOS, Peloton, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Nike. Since it was founded in 2005, Klarna has raised $3.7 billion. The company now has a valuation of $45.6 billion and 4,000 employees.
“Open banking empowers consumers and small businesses to use their financial data to expand access to financial services, such as demonstrating their financial wellness to increase access to credit, aggregating financial data to improve personal financial management, and to more seamlessly set up and manage payments,” Mastercard Chief Product Officer Craig Vosburg explained. “Together, we’ll continue to build up on our API connectivity and our multi-rail strategy to enable greater consumer access, control, and choice around the world.”
Aiia is the company known formerly as Nordic API Gateway, the leading open banking platform in Northern Europe. More than 40 financial institutions, as well as a number of enterprises, rely on the platform to integrate financial data and offer A2A (account-to-account) payments. Via a simple API, the solution supports a wide variety of payment services ranging from one-off, e-commerce payments to bulk payments for SMEs. The company demonstrated the technology at its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope earlier this year.
Founded in 2017, Aiia includes Danske Bank, OP Bank, Lunar, DNB, and Santander Consumer Bank among its partners. A licensed Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP) and Account Information Service Provider (AISP), Aiia has raised more than $15 million (€13.5 million) in funding to date. This includes a $5 million investment from DNB and Danske Bank in April of last year.
“For the past decade, we have worked to build Aiia into a leading and quality-driven open banking platform, which has onboarded hundreds of banks and fintechs onto safe and secure open banking rails,” Aiia founder and CEO Rune Mai said when the acquisition news first broke in September. “We have worked closely alongside banks, customers, and local authorities to ensure that our APIs show the true effect of open banking. We’re excited to become a part of Mastercard and progress our journey of empowering people to bring their financial data and accounts into play – safely and transparently.”
Aiia is the latest fintech acquisition by Mastercard. The purchase comes a year after the completion of its acquisition of real-time financial data and insights company Finicity.
Supporting more than 30,000 advisors, representing more than three million end-investors, and servicing more than $1 trillion in assets across its platforms, intelliflo has delivered SaaS-based solutions for the financial advisory industry since its founding in 2004.
Headquartered in the U.K. and recognized as one of the leading technology platforms for financial advisors in the country, intelliflo announced earlier this year that it had successfully integrated five advisory solution businesses – Jemstep, Portfolio Pathway, RedBlack, i4C, and intelliflo U.K. – under the Intelliflo brand. The move to consolidate its advisory services was designed to enable the company to better compete with rivals like Finovate alum Envestment.
We chatted with Jennifer Valdez, intelliflo’s President of the Americas, to discuss the company’s rebrand and how the wave of digital transformation has impacted the financial advisory space. We also talked about the role of women in financial services and the importance of changing mindsets as a key step on the path toward positive change.
What was the driving force behind intelliflo’s recent rebrand?
Jennifer Valdez: Earlier this year, Invesco brought together its five separate software businesses to form the new intelliflo, a single, API-driven platform to run the end-to-end advisory experience. intelliflo’s technology is comprehensive, representing a broad spectrum of capabilities including financial planning, practice management, digital account opening, reporting, as well as trading and rebalancing capabilities. The open architecture drives new levels of flexibility, efficiencies, and personalization across financial advice, empowering organizations of all sizes with digital tools to better serve modern investors and widen access to financial advice. intelliflo supports over 30,000 financial advisors worldwide, representing more than three million end-investors and over $1 trillion in assets serviced on the platform.
What tips do you have for clients beginning to embark on digital transformation projects?
Valdez: Before starting any major digital or business transformation project, it’s critical to pause and really think through the pain points you’re trying to solve. This includes listening to your internal team members, advisors, and clients. Technology simply for technology’s sake won’t be effective or productive; you must be solving a true business problem that will move the needle and better position your organization for meaningful change and success. Once that direction is clearly defined, then it’s time to engage your technology partner(s) to ensure you are fully maximizing technology to support your future vision.
Why is it so important for women to have a seat at the table? What steps can individual organizations and the industry as a whole take to ensure greater representation?
Valdez: Representation matters, and in order for organizations to accurately and comprehensively represent all audiences, these groups must have a voice (and vote) when making decisions. This doesn’t mean just women, but all traditionally underrepresented groups such as people of color and those in LGBTQ+ community.
As a collective industry, we can all choose to do more to raise awareness against bias and stand up for equality, giving everyone an opportunity to thrive. Challenging current mindsets is the pathway to driving positive change.
How have the last 18 months changed the industry?
Valdez: The past year and a half have significantly impacted the financial advice space. Financial advisors are not regularly sitting across the desk from their clients, which challenges them to determine how to continue to meet investors’ needs and help improve their overall financial health. At the same time, investors are increasingly wanting tailored advice, so financial advice professionals are being challenged to deliver a high level of service in a new digital way.
While this has been difficult, it’s also created an opportunity for the industry to embrace modern technology in new ways, digitizing workflows and back-office capabilities to help increase efficiencies and reduce costs. Streamlining the advisory experience in this way is not only beneficial for the financial advice professionals, but also the end investors – it enables quicker, more transparent communication and collaboration all around, while also driving greater personalization.
Can you share a recent professional accomplishment and/or a goal you hope to accomplish?
Valdez: Being asked to lead the Americas for intelliflo has been a significant personal milestone. I’ve always recognized the importance of financial advice and have been passionate about helping investors strengthen their financial wellness. In my role, I get to lead an amazing team that executes on our company’s mission to widen access to financial advice.
At intelliflo, we firmly believe that financial advice should be accessible to all, not just the wealthy. That’s why we’re dedicated to providing the digital technology necessary to make this a reality, helping advisors improve the financial lives of their investors. I’m excited for what’s to come.
How do you see the advisory experience evolving this year and next? What role does technology play?
Valdez: Looking toward the end of this year and into next, I expect more financial services firms to embrace a hybrid advice model, a strategic, flexible mix of digital and human advice. Such an approach enables advisory firms to meet investors whenever and wherever they want to be met, while also allowing these firms to deliver products and services more efficiently and effectively.
Another significant benefit of a hybrid advice model is the ability to close notable product gaps. Many firms have clearly defined offerings for those who want full advice and for those who are primarily self-directed, but more choice should be made available to those investors that fall somewhere in between. With a hybrid strategy, financial services firms can cost effectively provide products and services that meet the needs of every investor on the continuum – and in their engagement models and delivery channels of choice.
Technology is key to making the shift to a hybrid model successful. More firms will forgo bespoke software solutions in favor of a single platform that can support the end-to-end advisory experience, allowing them to boost efficiencies. Leveraging open architecture and sophisticated APIs will be critical in helping to optimize margins, reduce costs, and enable greater personalization across the advisory experience.
Ohio-based KeyBank made its sixth acquisition today. The bank purchased Banking-as-a-Service company XUP, a platform that helps banks take control of the merchant experience. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 2018, XUP connects merchants, third party financial service providers, and acquirers across channels to help banks offer a more integrated and seamless payments experience. KeyBank will use XUP’s technology to improve its embedded banking strategy and improve the user experience for its commercial users. The bank describes the move as the “next step in providing digital innovation at scale.”
Today’s news is only the latest development in the relationship between KeyBank and XUP. The bank contributed to XUP’s $3 million Seed round closed in February and the two were strategic partners. According to KeyBank, XUP helped accelerate the volume growth of its merchant payments capabilities. The bank now counts 150 million card transactions each year, accounting for $13.6 billion in annual card volume.
“We’ve long embraced the software innovation that’s sweeping through the financial services industry, and the acquisition of XUP allows us to continue to be a leader in this space,” said KeyBank’s Head of Enterprise Payments & Analytics Ken Gavrity. “XUP’s highly experienced team has accelerated us on the journey to build connectivity across our systems, our partners, and our customers, to make it easy to do business with Key.”
XUP will continue to operate as its own entity and support its customer base. “Our end-to-end software solutions, combined with Key’s scale and deep financial services expertise, will perfectly blend to provide clients a best-in-class payment experience,” said XUP President Chris May.
KeyBank was founded in 1825, has $187 billion in assets under management, is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, and has 1,000 branches across the U.S. The bank’s other acquisitions include AQN Strategies, Finovate alum HelloWallet, First Niagara Financial Group, EverTrust Financial Group, and Leasetec. Among the company’s strategic partners are AvidXchange, BillTrust, and Bill.com.
EarlyBird, a mobile investing app for children and their families, has raised $4 million in seed funding today. Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six led the round, which featured strategic participation from Gemini’s Frontier Fund, Network Ventures, Rarebreed Ventures, and other angel and VC investors. The company will use the capital to continue building its solution, add to its engineering, product, marketing, and operations teams, and introduce new features – including the ability for users to invest and gift assets other than stocks and ETFs, such as cryptocurrencies.
The investment takes the company’s total funding to more than $7 million, having secured funding previously in November and January of last year.
Using a collaborative approach to next-generation wealth building, EarlyBird enables parents to set up an investment account, select from a number of diversified portfolio options, and begin making investments on behalf of their child. The platform also empowers members of a child’s extended network of family, friends, and others to contribute to the account (“gifted capital” EarlyBird calls it). Whether celebrating birthdays, holidays, or other occasions, these contributions are not only unique gift options, they also help young people begin to learn about the importance of investing and building wealth over time. The technology also has a feature that enables contributors to add a video or photo commemorating the gift.
“EarlyBird started with the vision to create an accessible way for all families to begin building wealth for their children, and to do so with the support, love, and contributions of their broader communities,” EarlyBird co-founder and CEO Jordan Wexler said. “Since our launch, we’ve seen incredible growth, adoption, and excitement from families with a wide range of financial knowledge and backgrounds. Seven Seven Six and all of our new partners recognize the importance of financial access and approachability in investing, and we’re thrilled to have them on board as we continue to take flight.”
Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and founded in 2019, EarlyBird recently announced a partnership with Benjamin Talks, a youth-oriented financial education platform launched by co-founders Nikki Boulukos and Carissa Jordan last fall. The collaboration will bring Benjamin Talks content to EarlyBird’s newsletter series “The Weekend Worm” which offers stock market news in an approachable way that parents can share with their children. This spring, EarlyBird introduced its Gifts for Good program. Starting this April, EarlyBird selected up to three “extraordinary kids between the ages of 3 and 12 years old to support and invest in.” With an eye toward young people showing achievement in areas such as music and the arts, athletics, academics, and “special acts of kindness,” EarlyBird will provide a gift investment of $250 to each child selected to seed their investment accounts.
“Investing tools are only available to families with investing knowledge and experience building generational wealth,” EarlyBird COO Caleb Frankel said in a statement accompanying today’s investment news. “We have a bold vision to make investing available for everybody. We are driving wealth creation not within the system of today, but for the world of tomorrow.”
Merchant services aggregator and mobile payments company Square is making online merchants’ lives easier with a new launch today.
The Square Photo Studio app helps sellers take high-quality pictures of merchandise and sync them to their online store.
The app, which is available to both Square sellers and anyone with a Square Online Checkout link, guides merchants through easy-to-follow prompts to help them take the best photo. The photo studio automatically isolates the product from the background then helps users stylize the photo with backgrounds, shadows, and colors.
Once the seller has optimized their photo, they can connect their images to the corresponding items in their Square catalog or create a new item. After merchants list items in the catalog, they can start selling immediately.
“It’s no secret that products with professional-looking photos perform better than those without,” said Head of eCommerce at Square David Rusenko. “Unfortunately, the cost, skill set, and labor involved with taking those photos was often prohibitive. Now, with Square Photo Studio, sellers can give their items the look of a professional photo studio shoot from the comfort of their home, the office, or on the go.”
The Square Photo Studio app is available to everyone in the Apple App store, which creates a lower barrier to entry for anyone who wants to sell physical goods. Because the app is very accessible and easy-to-use, it has the potential to increase the number of transactions from Square sellers.
Ozow, a payment gateway based in South Africa, has secured $48 million in Series B investment in a round led by Chinese fintech Tencent. The funding boosts the company’s total capital raised to more than $51 million. The company said the funding will be used to promote fintech regulation – particularly open banking – to help more people gain access to payment services. The new capital will also enable the seven-year old fintech to enter new markets throughout sub-Saharan Africa and add employees. Namibia, Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria are among the countries Ozow is currently targeting for expansion.
Co-founded by current CEO Thomas Pays, Ozow enables consumers to pay for transactions directly from their bank accounts. This kind of service has special potential in a country like South Africa where only 20% of those who have bank accounts have and use credit cards. Ozow has six million users of its technology and Pays claims that the company is adding 140,000 users and processing $100 million in transactions every month.
Also participating in Ozow’s latest round were Endeavor Catalyst and Endeavor Harvest Fund.
Using Ozow is straightforward. Consumers choose Ozow as a payment option when making purchases either online or in-person. Then they select their bank, log in with their online banking credentials, and allow Ozow to automate the actual payment process. Free to use for individual consumers, merchants are able to use Ozow’s platform for free for the first 12 months – or a maximum of $65,000 in processing value each month. In order to receive payments, merchants only need a bank account and a smartphone or similar device. Ozow includes Vodacom, MTN, Takealot, and Uber among its enterprise clients.
Pays said that his team had been “engaging with Tencent” since the spring, and that the company understood “the scale and opportunity” available in investing in a company like Ozow.
“It’s an honor to bring on board Tencent, Endeavor Catalyst, and Endeavor Harvest Fund,” Pays said in a statement. “This is a validation of our role in transforming the banking industry through the development of innovative, convenient, and more inclusive payment solutions for everyone.”
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
The Finovate Team was saddened to hear of the passing of Brandon Dewitt, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of MX. He was 38.
In a letter to company employees, MX CEO Ryan Caldwell, who co-founded the firm with Dewitt in 2010, wrote of his colleague’s “brilliance, boundless positivity, wonderful wit, and ability to be joyous and grateful, regardless of what challenges he faced.”
Diagnosed with Stage IV cancer in 2016, Dewitt was a staple of MX’s participation at Finovate events, including leading the company’s most recent Best of Show winning demo at FinovateFall in 2019. But it may have been his presentation at Finovate’s developers’ conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, that left the most indelible impression on so many of us. After a discussion of the company’s latest innovation, Dewitt retold the story of his battle with cancer, the way his teammates at MX rallied in support, and why he wanted to discuss this topic with our Finovate/FinDEVr audience.
What I want to say to every developer that’s here today, every entrepreneur that’s here to today, every builder that’s here today is about the seemingly impossible, certainly improbable, but necessary. I want you to know that we wake up every single day and say ‘but necessary.’ We know as an organization what our task is: to be ‘but necessary’. And I want to challenge every developer out there in saying, ‘are you working on something that is necessary?’
You may be thinking, ‘man he went from talking software to talking cancer and scared it me’ …” Dewitt conceded. “But if you look at the leading causes of death of humans, in the top ten is suicide … And if you look at the leading causes of suicide, one of the leading causes of suicide is financial stress. The World Health Organization considers financial stress one of the most significant problems facing mankind.
So what we’re doing here today and what you wake up and do on a daily basis, can be part of the solution to a very, very solvable problem. And so I want to challenge you not only as organizations, not only as builders, but as humans. Are you waking up every single day and doing something that is necessary? And if you’re not, there’s tons of organizations that are out in that hallway that have a booth set up that are doing something that is necessary, that is finding a way to change the world that is necessary for the future of humanity, and I would encourage you to check them out.
Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with Brandon Dewitt’s fiancé, Kara, as well as his family, friends, and his teammates at MX.
Buy Here, Pay Here (BHPH) crowdsourced securitization firm Agora Data is coming out with a new financing tool this week. The Texas-based company is introducing a reducing interest rate line of credit for BHPH dealers and small-to-mid-size finance companies to offer their sub-prime borrowers more vehicle financing options.
With the new reducing rate line of credit, the interest rate decreases over time. The loans also come with other advantages not typically found with traditional financing options, including no personal guaranty or recourse, flexibility to draw cash as needed, and no origination or unused line fees.
“With AgoraCapital, we remove the obstacles dealers confront in traditional lines of credit and empower them with the same secret sauce enjoyed by larger national dealer groups,” said Agora Data CEO Steve Burke. “Agora’s innovative, best-in-class financing options and robust data analytics are leveling the playing field for an underserved and underbanked industry.”
Agora Data was founded in 2017 and its team of auto retail, finance industry experts, and top data scientists leverage AI to bring BHPH car dealers a simplified experience when it comes to selling auto loans. Agora Data aids dealers in selling their auto loans to banks, finance companies, hedge funds, and private equity firms. The selling tool groups all firms’ offers together and analyzes each one in order to provide the dealer with the most competitive offer.
In addition to the selling service, the company offers AgoraInsights, a product that helps dealers maximize portfolio performance, reduce risk, and manage cashflow. “Agora is already making a positive difference for the BHPH industry by helping our members strengthen their financial footing and realize unprecedented growth, knowledge, ability to compete and ultimately build wealth,” added Burke.
News about auto financing has consistently appeared in the fintech headlines since the beginning of the COVID pandemic. However, while Agora Data’s announcement is aimed at auto financing for the underbanked community, most of the news we’ve seen in this sector has focused on digitizing and managing the loan application portion of auto loans and refinances. One such company, MotoRefi, partnered with SoFi in April of this year and received $45 million in funding in May.
In an extension of its $200 million Series E financing round, digital payments company Airwallex has secured an additional $100 million in funding. The extension came from Lone Pine Capital and featured the participation of existing investors such as 1835i Ventures and Sequoia Capital China. Now standing at $300 million, Airwallex’s latest funding gives the company a valuation of $5.5 billion. The company has raised a total of $802 million.
“As we approach our sixth anniversary, we want to continue to connect entrepreneurs, business builders, and makers with opportunities in every corner of the world,” co-founder and CEO of Airwallex Jack Zhang said. “This new capital injection will allow us to do just that, fueling M&A opportunities that will accelerate our global expansion plans, pursuing our mission to empower businesses to grow without borders.”
Headquartered in Australia, Airwallex offers a financial infrastructure and platform that enables businesses to manage payments online. The company’s business accounts allow businesses to transfers funds worldwide to more than 130 countries in 31 currencies, at a cost of 0.4% to 1.0% above the interbank FX rate. Airwallex’s business accounts connect seamlessly with online stores such as eBay, Shopify, and PayPal, as well as with accounting packages like Xero, and enable firms to issue virtual “borderless” payment cards to their employees.
Airwallex’s funding comes as the company reports a 1.6x year-over-year revenue increase for Q3, along with annualized revenue of more than $100 million. Launching its virtual employee cards in Hong Kong and the U.K. this past quarter, Airwallex also secured licenses to operate in both Singapore and Malaysia.
“Receiving this approval reflects our robust policies, compliance framework and risk management systems we have put in place,” Zhang said when Airwallex received its Major Payment Institution License by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) earlier this month. “We will continue to work closely with regulators and partners to ensure we facilitate a safe, effective, and transparent way to manage their cross-border financial transaction needs.”
Founded in 2015, Airwallex has recently announced partnerships with Australian digital brokerage company Stake and travel lifestyle brand Cathay. In October, the company was named to the 2021 CB Insights Fintech 250 list for the fourth consecutive year.
