Amex and the Airwallex team help businesses scale
Australia-based FinTech Airwallex says its customers can now accept American Express as a payment method.
The two companies announced their partnership on Tuesday (Jan 17) in a press release provided to PYMNTS, saying it allows Airwallex customers in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK to accept American Express card payments from around the world.
“The collaboration focuses on innovative cross-border, multi-currency payment solutions for businesses, bringing together Airwallex’s technology and infrastructure with the benefits and convenience of paying with American Express,” Airwallex said.
The company said the partnership will allow customers to accept American Express payments through payment links, Xero invoice payments and e-commerce extensions. With American Express, Airwallex now accepts more than 60 payment methods.
“Together with our global payments and banking infrastructure, we hope we can continue to empower businesses to scale internally and across borders,” said Ravi Adusumilli, Airwallex senior vice president of partnerships and business development.
As PYMNTS noted last week, many market watchers expect to see continued growth in cross-border e-commerce this year.
“It is a forecast supported by the belief that this expansion will be enabled, at least in part, by payment platforms that reduce the pain points that small online sellers typically face when navigating the challenges of commerce in new geographies,” PYMNTS wrote.
Among these challenges is maintaining multiple platforms and tools as online sales remain high, Payoneer’s Ya Wen told PYMNTS.
That, in turn, is leading cross-border hopefuls to seek “consolidated solutions to provide a single point platform to handle the accounts payable and accounts receivable side of the business,” said Wen, the company’s senior vice president for the Americas.
“There will be a lot more innovation to make accounts payable and accounts receivable easier, faster and cheaper for the e-commerce business.”
Airwallex has been looking to grow internationally in the wake of a $100 million funding round in October that valued the company at $5.5 billion.
“The market environment remains challenging for the foreseeable future, and while we remain well capitalized, this additional runway allows us to continue our growth plans, product expansion and hire some of the best talent in the world,” CEO Jack Zhang said at the time.
Last month, the FinTech launched a series of partnerships, including one with Plaid to offer streamlined payments. Airwallex also partners with travel companies TripActions and Agoda, PYMNTS reported in December.
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