Airwallex officially set up shop in Malaysia today. Although it technically had a presence in the country since 2022, today marks the day that the company is announcing its foothold in Malaysia, as well as Southeast Asia.
The announcement comes just a couple of weeks after Airwallex received its e-money and Class A licenses from Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), allowing the financial platform to cover remittance and currency exchange through its own payment rails, in different foreign currency, and without the typical downtime that occurs with traditional bank transactions.
The full suite of services Airwallex offers will be rolled out in Malaysia over the coming months, but the following is a list of services it will be providing:
- Onboard digitally through one streamlined experience to access Airwallex’s full global product suite
- Collect, hold, and manage funds through multi-currency wallets
- Convert currencies seamlessly within the platform with competitive FX
- Move money globally through fast, cost-effective transfers
- Issue corporate cards and control spend with integrated expense management tools
“With Airwallex, the era of slow speeds and high fees in managing a global business is coming to an end. Since entering Malaysia, we’ve helped companies lower transaction costs significantly through our cross-border payments infrastructure,” Andrew Chim, Head of Southeast Asia Expansion, Airwallex, said. “Our full product suite will give Malaysian businesses the tools to scale internationally more efficiently, without the complexity of multiple providers. We’ve built this so founders can stop worrying about their financial operations and focus on their next market.”
For the uninitiated, think of Airwallex as another e-wallet like Wise. Unlike Wise, though, the financial platform is catered more towards SMEs and B2B transactions. The amount in which one can hold in their e-wallet is also different; because Wise is more consumer-oriented, users are only allowed to hold up to RM20,000 in the e-wallet at any given time.
For a B2B financial platform like Airwallex, that amount is capped at RM500,000.
(Source: Airwallex)
