Airwallex vs Wise: Let the Fintech Battle Begin!

A deep dive into how two fintech unicorns built different billion-dollar business models in the $200B cross-border global payment market

Airwallex represents a unique hybrid in fintech, combining Stripe's API-first payment infrastructure with Brex-style spend management and Wise's cross-border capabilities. With $720M in revenue from 150,000 business customers, it faces off against Wise's broader approach serving 12.8 million customers (including 630,000 businesses) with $1.42B in revenue. Despite Airwallex's comprehensive B2B platform, Wise's mass-market efficiency has driven it to a £11 billion ($14.9B) public valuation versus Airwallex's $6.2B private valuation.

Founding Story

Wise's origin story begins with two Estonian friends working in London in 2011. Kristo Käärmann (now Wise CEO), working at Deloitte, was paid in British pounds but had a mortgage in euros back in Estonia. Taavet Hinrikus (now Wise chairman), Skype's first employee, was paid in euros but needed British pounds for London expenses. Instead of accepting bank fees and poor exchange rates, they looked up the mid-market exchange rate each month and transferred money directly into each other's accounts. This simple hack saved them hundreds of pounds monthly and became the foundation for TransferWise, later rebranded as Wise.

Airwallex was founded in 2015, in Melbourne, Australia, as an API-first cross-border payments infrastructure, initially targeting developers and large businesses with the technical capabilities to implement their API. The company, headed by founder and CEO Jack Zhang, later relocated its headquarters to Singapore to better serve the Asian market. Airwallex got its breakthrough processing payments for Shein during the Chinese fast-fashion giant's explosive early growth phase.

This API-first approach distinguished Airwallex from Wise's direct relationship model. While Wise built its reputation on transparent pricing for individuals and later small businesses, Airwallex was laser focused on serving large business customers, and later on, small businesses doing business internationally, expanding into business banking corporate cards and spend management to serve this segment.

Business Model

The Airwallex revenue architecture includes currency conversion fees (interbank rate plus 0.5-1.0% margin in the US), payment processing (2.80% + 0.30 USD per transaction in the US), interchange fees from corporate card transactions, interest on held funds, and API usage fees. This diversified approach creates multiple monetization layers within single customer relationships, driving higher lifetime value.

Wise has maintained transparent pricing while scaling to $1.42 billion in annual revenue. Though the majority of its 12.8 million customers are individuals, its 630,000 business customers contribute significantly to cross-border volume, with business accounts generating £8.7 billion compared to £24.5 billion from personal accounts during the first quarter of 2025. Wise's model centers on money transfer fees starting at 0.57%, currency conversion starting at 0.57% and interchange fees on its virtual cards.

Wise serves 12.8 million million customers with 5,500 employees generating $258,909 revenue per employee, while Airwallex serves 150,000 business customers with 1,700 employees at $423,539 revenue per employee. Airwallex's higher revenue per employee reflects its focus on fewer, higher-value enterprise customers who generate more revenue each. Wise's lower ratio comes from serving millions of smaller customers and individual users who each contribute less revenue, requiring a larger workforce relative to total revenue despite its self-service model.

Product Offering

Airwallex operates as a comprehensive financial platform combining multiple products. The core offering includes multi-currency business accounts and payment acceptance through multiple local payment methods. The platform's corporate cards feature real-time expense tracking, automated receipt capture, multi-level approval workflows, and direct integration with accounting systems. Airwallex also provides API infrastructure allowing businesses to embed payment capabilities directly into their own platforms.

The spend management functionality rivals dedicated platforms like Brex or Ramp, offering virtual and physical cards with spending controls, automated expense categorization, and comprehensive reporting. Businesses can set spending limits by employee, department, or project, with real-time visibility into all transactions.

Wise focuses primarily on money movement and multi-currency accounts. The platform offers virtual business debit cards in select markets, but these lack the comprehensive spend management features found in Airwallex. Wise's strength lies in transparent pricing for straightforward transfers and currency conversions, with seamless integration to accounting platforms like QuickBooks and Xero.

Geographic Coverage

Airwallex's Singapore headquarters positions the company at the center of Asia-Pacific's explosive growth, with particular strength in Chinese yuan transactions. It currenly accept customers in 56 countries including Canada, the US, the UK, India, Australia and most European countries.

Airwallex supports payouts to over 200 countries through local and SWIFT networks, with local clearing connections in over 110 countries. For receiving payments, Airwallex offers Global Accounts in 22 currencies.

Wise can send money to 52 countries and its Wise accounts available 77 countries and territories. The platform supports over 40 currencies for sending and receiving money. Wise's strength lies in broad consumer and SMBs accessibility and ease of use, while Airwallex offer a more comprehensive geographic coverage, but target a narrow set of international enterprises and SMBs.