Airwallex Acquisition of OpenPay: Unlocking Revenue Growth
Global financial platform Airwallex has strengthened its position against competitors such as Stripe Billing through the acquisition of billing platform OpenPay.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform OpenPay offers billing and analytics services to the partnership. Also included in the software are end-to-end solutions.
Multi-currency upgrades
Airwallex is set to benefit through the acquisition as it elevates to global capabilities.
Jack Zhang, Co-founder and CEO of Airwallex, says: “Most billing systems are locked in the past, they were never designed for a global, multi-currency world. That’s the gap we’re closing,”
Clients will soon be able to benefit as the acquisition aims to lower costs in tandem with increasing revenue.
Businesses could no longer be discouraged by hurdles such as borders when scaling subscriptions.
“By bringing OpenPay’s subscription management, orchestration, and analytics capabilities into Airwallex, we’re creating the first truly global billing platform.
"The OpenPay team brings deep technical strength and a shared conviction in our vision, and we’re thrilled to have them on board as we help businesses scale seamlessly across borders." Jack comments.
OpenPay has automated payment features such as smart payment routing, real-time insights, AI-lead retention tools and subscription management.
“We started OpenPay to solve the complexity of recurring revenue management. We envisioned a smarter, more intuitive platform that empowers subscription businesses to scale without barriers,” says Lance Co Ting Keh, CEO of OpenPay.
Financial details of the transaction have not been released.
“In Airwallex, we found a partner who shares our vision, our DNA and has the global reach to apply our work at scale.
"We are very proud of what we’ve built and excited for our next chapter as we partner with Airwallex to set a new standard, creating a paradigm shift in global payments.”
Global expansion to fuel growth
The company’s worldwide expansion strategy aims to target international payments to further its mission to power global banking without borders.
Earlier this year, Airwallex partnered with Clear.Bank to expand operations in the UK market.
British customers are now able to benefit from access to Confirmation of Payee, which matches the recipient’s name to their account details before a payment is made.
Just days later, Airwallex announced a shift into LATAM markets with an acquisition of Mexican fintech MexPago and the obtainment of a payment institution licence from Banco Central do Brasil.
- Adoption rates of Apple Pay, Google Pay and GrabPay have reached 83% in Indonesia, 80% in Malaysia and 52% in Singapore
- Subscription economy is expected to hit US$1.2trn by 2030
- Airwallex is used by businesses such as TikTok, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, and SHEIN.
Airwallex: how did global expansion affect valuation?
Airwallex recently completed Series F funding to the tune of US$300m, raising the payment platform’s total valuation to over $US1.2bn.
At the time of the announcement, the company expected to reach an annual run rate of $US1bn in the current year.
Airwallex has recently partnered with Discover Global Network to enable Airwallex merchants to process transactions from Discover Global Network's cardholders in territories such as Australia, Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the UK.
According to data provided to Discover by Network Alliances participants and third-party sources as of December 2023, this network includes 345 million cardholders in over 200 countries and territories.
Airwallex has also called for UK based companies to adapt for Southeast Asian markets, after research highlighted payment preferences that could inspire action.
