What happened: Airwallex has announced the launch of a new tax submission and other features that specifically target the needs of creators (The Paypers). This is part of Airwallex’s platform or embedded finance offering, which aims at platforms serving this customer group.
My comment: Airwallex's focus on creator-focused platforms makes a lot of sense. I haven’t covered Airwallex in my newsletter that often, but after last week’s partnership with Vistra, it’s the second time in a row. Airwallex was not founded as an embedded finance player, but as a pure fintech company that offers businesses worldwide a spend management and financial platform. With the rise of embedded finance, Airwallex has focused more on its API product offering, which includes a banking-as-a-service, payment and treasury offering.
Since it operates in countries worldwide, it also competes with local players, such as banking-as-a-service providers. It might be hard for Airwallex to build all the local features that a provider needs in a single market to succeed (e.g., local IBANs in Europe). However, their offering is likely very attractive for platforms targeting a customer group that is located in various parts of the world - which is the case for creators. A local European banking-as-a-service provider could help a creator platform service their European creators, but none outside Europe. In industries like these, the global reach beats local features. Thus, the new product launches or actually the announcement itself might open a few new doors for the company. And there might be other industries with the same characteristics, so maybe Airwallex will target another niche after that?
