The truth about global payments has been revealed by Airwallex

Author: Gang Ge

After the last article was published, many people messaged me, and the questions mainly focused on the following categories:

"Doesn't a certain platform look similar? Is it reliable?"

"Isn't digital currency payment less complicated now?"

"Is it necessary for Airwallex to invest so heavily in payments?" To answer these questions, we can take a look at the popular article "The Toughest Road is the Way Out: A Panorama of Global Payment Infrastructure" published by Airwallex founder Jack Zhang on WeChat and X.com (formerly Twitter).

Figure 1 Original text by Jack Zhang on Twitter

This article not only explains why Airwallex chose the "heavy asset" path but also reveals a long-hidden issue in the global payment industry.
What exactly did he discuss? Let me introduce it to you.
[Full text 2966 words, estimated 10 minutes]

01 Surface Homogeneity, Underlying Differentiation

When corporate clients choose a payment platform, they are often confused by one question: the several payment companies they communicate with seem to have similar capabilities.

For example, hundreds of payment companies worldwide almost all use a similar narrative to introduce their products: instant settlement, global coverage, serving modern enterprises, and even the functions and interfaces are becoming increasingly similar.

• Everyone claims to have global acquiring: by connecting a packaged Visa/MasterCard channel, they can say "supporting over 200 countries and regions worldwide";

• Everyone claims to have global accounts: by partnering with several banks, they can say "one account for global collections, covering over 20 mainstream currencies".

The problem is that while the surface functions are becoming more similar, the underlying capabilities are vastly different.

Figure 2 Surface homogeneity cannot hide the huge underlying differences

Users also cannot see the real differences between platforms in product introductions, which leads them to repeatedly scrutinize payment institutions regarding costs, backgrounds, licenses, risks, and so on.
Ultimately, what corporate clients truly care about is not just the integration experience, but whether the capital chain is stable, whether the compliance system is solid, and whether they can smoothly expand into new markets. Therefore, to determine whether a payment platform is reliable, one must not only look at what the front end looks like but also see whether the platform retains complexity for itself or shifts it to the client.

02 Three Paths of Global Payments

Since we have clarified the core capabilities at the front end, we must return to the underlying structure and break down the common paths in this industry.

If we analyze the mainstream players in the industry, there are roughly three paths.

Figure 3 Three diverging paths in the evolution of global payments

2.1 First Path: Bypassing Traditional Links

The first path: Web3 digital currency payments

On this path, a common narrative is told: stablecoins, on-chain settlement, programmable payments, peer-to-peer payments. Compared to traditional payments, it can offer shorter paths, faster speeds, and lower costs; and it hopes to penetrate the consumer retail scene through a story of small, high-frequency transactions.

However, you will find that very few players in digital currency payments have emerged on this path.
The core reason is that it is not that this path lacks efficiency, but that new players have no alternative advantages in the face of mainstream payment platforms, and there are too many compliance frictions that are difficult to resolve in the short term.

Figure 4 First path: On-chain settlement bypassing traditional links
Currently, mainstream global payment platforms not only have a global payment network but also deeply integrate into local ecosystems in various countries, building operational teams and forming comprehensive advantages in technology, service, compliance, and product layers for digital currency payments.

• Technical aspect: Global payments are instant, merchant settlements to card D1/D0 are optional;

• Service aspect: Under intense competition, payment costs are not high, and mature local operational teams serve clients down to the last mile;

• Compliance aspect: Various jurisdictions have always had doubts about their compliance, leading to significant compliance friction;

• Product aspect: Mainstream payment platforms also focus on stablecoin payments, and as long as compliance policies are implemented, products can be integrated and replaced at any time.

Therefore, new players on this path will find that the options often remain only in fragmented markets that mainstream payment institutions are unwilling to serve and in gray and black market clients that they dare not serve.

This is also the reason why many who hold dreams of Web3 payment entrepreneurship ultimately have to exit quietly.

2.2 Second Path: Packaging Traditional Infrastructure

This is the path most people in the industry take: relying on partners and intermediaries to wrap the complex and outdated underlying architecture, then using better product experiences and faster marketing to drive market expansion.

The advantages of this path are also very obvious: quick results, rapid expansion, and fast coverage, making it a natural choice for most players.

But the problem is that it is more about optimizing the front end rather than rewriting the underlying structure.
Jack Zhang's judgment on this point is very direct: the core issues have not changed; the agency chain links, bilateral cooperation relationships, and compliance dependency risks are all still there. At the same time, he believes, "A good-looking interface has long been standard, but it does not shake the underlying operational logic of global payments."

Figure 5 Second path: Aggregating gateways to package infrastructure

In fact, the fastest-growing global company by market value, Stripe, was rejected when it attempted to acquire Airwallex in 2019, and there were rumors of acquiring PayPal in 2026 (which was also ultimately rejected).

This at least indicates that even international payment giants that rapidly grow by relying on "technology + light asset connections" ultimately have to return to supplement the infrastructure lesson.

Many times, the seemingly lighter path does not mean avoiding infrastructure; it just postpones the need for it.

2.3 Third Path: Building Global Financial Infrastructure

This is the path chosen by companies like Airwallex, Ant International, Pingpong, and Lianlian International: obtaining licenses in the jurisdictions where they operate, localizing operations, maintaining regular communication with regulators, and keeping compliance, technology, and underlying networks as much in-house as possible.

This path is the most challenging because it has almost no shortcuts. It requires continuous high investment, longer cycles, and also means heavier responsibilities.
However, Airwallex is more resolute in this regard, developing its own full-stack infrastructure and never relying on agents or intermediaries for connections. This means that it must spend heavily to hold licenses globally and maintain deep communication with local regulators as a licensed entity, continuously integrating local compliance institutions, building local teams, and serving clients down to the last mile.

Figure 6 Third path: Building global infrastructure
Such heavy asset investment will obviously make many people feel "not smart enough." In fact, who doesn't want to take shortcuts? It just depends on what kind of value you want to provide to clients. If the underlying capabilities are still in the hands of others, the ones ultimately bearing the uncertainty will still be the clients.

03 The "Heavy" of the Platform Replaces the "Light" of the Client

For overseas corporate clients, the most expensive thing is never a payment fee, but those risks in the capital chain that are usually invisible but can be most fatal when problems arise.

For example, a market that has already been successfully navigated may suddenly have its bank accounts frozen; clients may have already paid for goods, but the funds are stuck halfway by the agent bank and cannot be settled for a long time; when regulatory rules tighten, additional materials, guarantees, and processes must be provided.

These issues may not occur every day, but if they happen once, they are enough to disrupt the rhythm of the enterprise.

Figure 7 The "Heavy" of the Platform Replaces the "Light" of the Client
Therefore, solidifying the infrastructure is essentially to retain the complexity that would originally fall on the client within its own system as much as possible, using its own "heavy" to exchange for the client's "light."

04 What Clients Truly Gain

Corporate clients are very pragmatic; they are never buying concepts but rather the value they can obtain. In the field of cross-border payments, the so-called value actually boils down to three things: more stability, more savings, and more certainty.

Figure 8 The Value Corporate Clients Truly Need

• More stable, because enterprises do not need to adapt to a new set of cooperation relationships every time they enter a market.

• More savings, not just in terms of fees, but also in reducing a large amount of redundant system costs, communication costs, and compliance costs.

• More certainty, because when market conditions change and regulatory rules tighten, clients rely not on a makeshift channel but on a more complete, durable, and cyclical underlying capability.

This is also why Airwallex's growth logic resembles compound interest rather than explosive growth.

Figure 9 The Compound Growth Brought by Infrastructure Investment

According to public information, Airwallex achieved an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $500 million in 9 years, while it took only one year to grow from $500 million to $1 billion. The earlier "slow" growth was not due to inefficiency but rather in accumulating underlying momentum for the subsequent acceleration.

05 Conclusion

Returning to the initial question, why does Airwallex build its own global financial infrastructure?
Because the most challenging part is precisely the part that cannot be outsourced, is most worthy of long-term investment, and can create the most value for clients.

Figure 10 Underlying Capability is the True Watershed

For corporate clients, choosing a global payment platform is essentially choosing a long-term partner that can help digest complexity and provide a stable foundation for their business.
For the global payment industry, shortcuts can help you run faster, but only by making the most difficult parts your own capabilities can you go further.

[References]

[1] Original text from Airwallex WeChat: The Toughest Road is the Way Out

https://www.airwallex.com/cn/blog/the-path-of-max-resistance-the-spectrum-of-global-payments-infrastructure

[2] Original text from Airwallex WeChat: The Last Mile of Global Payments

https://www.airwallex.com/cn/blog/the-last-mile-of-global-payments

[3] Sina: Reshaping the Future of the Financial Industry

https://finance.sina.com.cn/cj/2025-10-11/doc-inftnpwr8889861.shtml