Why is Airwallex Expanding its European Operations?

Australia-based financial platform company Airwallex is to expand its presence in Europe as it shifts its focus away from Asia Pacific.

It will invest around EUR200m (US$234m) in the Netherlands over the next five years and increase its headcount in that country to 70 by the end of 2026, according to Reuters.

The investment follows a larger extension in the United Kingdom that the company revealed in December which it values at US$590m for the five years to 2030.

Its new UK and European Union General Manager, Christos Chamberlain, starts this January, with London becoming the strategic hub for the region. The company will focus on France, Germany and the United Arab Emirates as primary markets across Europe and the Middle East.

The investment will also cover an expansion of its product line covering Spend AI, Credit Cards and Recurring Billing SaaS.

Airwallex completed its Series G funding in December which values the business at US$8bn.

Financial world defined by AI

Jack Zhang, Co-Founder and CEO of Airwallex, says: “We continue to see enormous potential here [in the UK], especially as the global financial ecosystem pivots to a world defined by AI and new cross-border trading norms.” 

“This multi-year investment reflects our confidence in the UK as a launchpad for regional growth across EMEA, and our determination to build the financial infrastructure businesses need to compete internationally."

Christos adds: “Companies in the UK and Europe are navigating increasingly complex financial and operational challenges as they scale. Airwallex is perfectly positioned to remove that friction.” 

“I’m excited to join the team following an impressive period of growth and to help accelerate expansion as we strengthen our local presence and product suite and empower more ambitious businesses operating across borders.”

Airwallex signs up global names

In November, Airwallex crossed the US$1bn annualised run rate revenue (ARR) threshold. It has over 200,000 business customers, which use Airwallex to manage their global banking and financial operations, or to build and monetise their own financial products using Airwallex infrastructure. 

Clients include internationally recognised brands like Shein, Bolt, TikTok and Canva. It has also become an official partner of the McLaren Racing Formula 1 team, one of the sport’s biggest brands.

Airwallex partners with the European Payment Initiative (EPI) to facilitate merchant access to European digital wallet Wero for cross-border payments. EPI has developed the digital wallet Wero to support easy cross-border payments without IBANs or physical cards. The partnership marks the next step in improvements to the currently disjointed payments system. 

Specialised agents

Airwallex is building a team of specialised AI agents to execute financial workflows. These agents leverage contextual signals across payments, treasury and spend activity to automate high-value, multi-step operations from expense approvals and policy checks to end-to-end task orchestration. 

Founded in Melbourne in 2015, Airwallex holds 80 licenses across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific, forming one of the most comprehensive financial infrastructures in the world. 

This regulated backbone supports Airwallex products at global scale, such as payment acceptance, billing, global accounts, corporate cards and spend management. 

It now operates global headquarters in San Francisco and Singapore. The designation of San Francisco as one of the global headquarters is aimed at US growth, AI development and talent acquisition.

Jack adds: “We believe the future of global banking will be borderless, real-time, and intelligent. Legacy providers are fundamentally incompatible with how modern businesses operate, and our investors understand that we're pulling ahead in the race to define this category. We’re building a modern alternative, a single platform that powers global banking, payments, billing, treasury, and spend on top of proprietary financial infrastructure.”