Written by: KarenZ, Foresight News
Moving money from New York to Singapore, the hardest part might not be 'moving fast.' It also needs to know who can move this money, which currency to convert it into, what compliance rules to follow, and finally, which bank account it should land in. As AI Agents start placing orders, making payments, and managing accounts for businesses, these problems will only be magnified.
On June 25th, Airwallex (Airwallex) completed a $320 million Series H financing round, reaching a valuation of $11 billion, and announced that the funds would be directed towards financial intelligence, agent commerce, global infrastructure, and compliance expansion.
On the same day, Metal announced that Airwallex and Capital49 (an independent venture capital fund founded by the Airwallex founding team) jointly led its seed round, with Airwallex becoming Metal's first design partner.
From a Web3 perspective, putting these two pieces of news together, the focus is not just on a strategic investment by Airwallex in Metal. More noteworthy is that Airwallex is placing the licenses, local payment networks, and API infrastructure it has accumulated over the past decade into a new proposition: when stablecoins, tokenized assets, and AI Agents are all to enter the enterprise financial system, who will be responsible for authorization, compliance, currency exchange, on/off-ramping, and final settlement?
From Cross-Border Payments to Agent Finance, Airwallex Aims to Get Closer to the Foundation
Airwallex's story has always been related to cross-border finance. In 2015, Jack Zhang and several entrepreneurs encountered the inefficiency, delays, and high costs of traditional banks and foreign exchange systems firsthand while running a cafe in Melbourne, leading to the founding of Airwallex.
Today, Airwallex positions itself as a modern financial platform for global businesses, connecting banks, payments, software, and AI.
This company has evolved from 'helping businesses receive and send cross-border payments cheaper and faster' to a more complex position. According to Airwallex's website, it currently supports over 200 countries, covers over 120 countries for local transfers, has processed over $287 billion in global payments cumulatively, with 92% of transfers settled on the same day and 50% processed instantly. The company also holds over 85 licenses and registrations, has over 2,300 employees, and 27 international offices.
The Series H financing round on June 25th made this direction even clearer. Airwallex officially announced that this round was led by existing shareholder Addition, with participation from existing and new investors including Baillie Gifford, Hummingbird, QED Investors, T. Rowe Price, Hedosophia, Haun Ventures, Washington University in St. Louis, and Amex Ventures.
The funds will be used to accelerate the research and development of financial intelligence and agent commerce products, expand global infrastructure and compliance in new markets, and grow the team to build next-generation AI-native financial software.
Jack Zhang's statement in the announcement is key. He said we are at a crucial juncture in the history of global financial development; ten years ago, the company could not clearly foresee the shape of the agent economy, but the financial licenses, local network integrations, and API-first financial infrastructure built over the past decade happen to fit the needs of today's agent economy.
This statement also explains why Airwallex is interested in Metal. Agent commerce is not as simple as getting AI to click a few more buttons. Once AI Agents start handling procurement, payments, reimbursements, foreign exchange, subscriptions, and revenue management for businesses, they require financial infrastructure that can be authorized, have limits set, settle across currencies, and undergo compliance reviews. Airwallex's licenses, local payment networks, and API capabilities are the entry point for this system in the real world.
What Metal Aims to Do Is Not 'Just Another Stablecoin Payment'
Six months ago, Loong Wang (co-founder of Metal) met Jack Zhang through a mutual friend and investor. Loong wrote in Metal's official blog that the two quickly began discussing a new type of financial infrastructure: it needed to be global, neutral, and institution-ready, capable of serving the next phase of finance represented by AI Agents, stablecoins, and tokenized financial products.
Metal defines itself as 'tokenized financial products infrastructure.' It is betting not on a single stablecoin payment scenario, but on a broader range of tokenized financial products, including stablecoins, tokenized bank deposits, money market products, US short-term treasuries, stocks, and securities. The application directions listed on Metal's website also include: tokenized financial products, stablecoin payments, inter-institutional settlement, micropayments, AI Agents, and embedded finance.
Stablecoins have already proven the efficiency of on-chain US dollars. They can make dollars cheaper, faster, and liquid 24/7. The judgment cited in Metal's official blog is that stablecoins have been growing at about 100% annually in recent years and are expected to reach a circulation of about $500 billion and a transaction volume of about $17.5 trillion by the end of 2026.
But corporate finance is far more complex than 'transfers.' Real-world settlement also involves bank deposits, securities, money market funds, foreign exchange conversion, accounts receivable, anti-money laundering reviews, regional rules, internal institutional risk control, and local on/off-ramps. Stablecoins are like a highway, but businesses need the highway, toll booths, customs, warehouses, and city roads to operate together.
This is also why Metal chose to build a compliant settlement network. Jack Zhang, when reposting Metal's announcement on June 25th, stated that Metal is a Layer 1 blockchain designed for 'large-scale compliant global settlement,' filling the infrastructure gap for licensed financial institutions to move and settle stablecoins securely, efficiently, and within a regulatory framework.
Catherine Porter, another co-founder and president of Metal, previously led partnerships for the Libra project and served as an advisor to Mysten Labs and Aptos.
The Position of Airwallex, Capital49, and Jack Zhang
The combination of Airwallex and Capital49 in Metal's seed round is very informative.
Metal stated that through the partnership with Airwallex, the Metal infrastructure will gain support from a local payment network covering 200 countries and 90 currencies.
This means Airwallex brings Metal not just brand endorsement, but a crucial piece of the puzzle for 'how on-chain assets enter the real world.' If tokenized financial products cannot enter bank accounts, local currencies, and corporate financial systems, it's difficult for them to evolve from on-chain narratives to institution-grade settlement tools. Airwallex's strengths lie exactly here: local payment networks, foreign exchange capabilities, licenses, APIs, and corporate finance scenarios.
The role of Capital49 is more like an early-stage capital extension of the Airwallex founders' network. Capital49 is a new venture capital fund backed by Airwallex founders, investing in fintech, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and B2B software. One of its advantages is enabling portfolio companies to access potential clients, service providers, and advisory resources within Airwallex's global network.
Interpreting Airwallex and Capital49 jointly leading the investment in Metal simply as 'a payment company investing in a Web3 project' would be inaccurate. More precisely, it's a company with existing global financial infrastructure, together with the founder capital network behind it, betting on the next-generation settlement layer. This settlement layer must handle stablecoins, but also AI Agents, tokenized assets, compliance authorization, and local on/off-ramping.
Jack's change in attitude can also be viewed within this framework. On June 7, 2025, Jack publicly questioned the claim that 'stablecoins can reduce foreign exchange fees.' His core point at the time was that if a user sends money from USD to EUR, and the recipient ultimately needs to receive euros in their bank account, the cost of off-ramping stablecoins to local currency might be higher than the interbank forex market.
A year later, he publicly supports Metal, emphasizing its capabilities for compliant global settlement for licensed financial institutions. The change here is not simply 'from doubting stablecoins to being optimistic about stablecoins.' What he supports now is an infrastructure solution that integrates stablecoins, compliance, on/off-ramping, local currencies, institutional settlement, and agent commerce.
In addition, Airwallex's same-day announcements of T:0 and Airi can also be observed together. T:0 is an AI-native financial platform aiming to handle financial functions like bookkeeping, financial forecasting, tax processing, compliance control, and financial report generation from a company's first day. Airi is positioned as the wallet infrastructure for agent commerce. Early test data provided by Airwallex shows its one-click settlement feature can help merchants increase conversion rates by up to 14%. In the future, it will also cover capabilities like smart agent authorized payments, spending limit controls, permission management, and multi-currency balance management.
This indicates that Airwallex is not just observing AI Agents and on-chain finance from the sidelines. It is actively incorporating corporate finance and agent commerce into its product roadmap. Metal may become another piece of the puzzle: when agents need to complete payments and settlements cross-border, cross-currency, and cross-institution, the underlying network must simultaneously handle speed, fees, authorization, privacy, compliance, and on/off-ramping.
The Real Test is Reconnecting On-Chain Assets to the Real World
Metal's public materials have not yet disclosed its fundraising amount, mainnet launch timeline, full technical whitepaper, or actual customer list. Therefore, judging Metal's potential success now cannot rely solely on vision.
What it truly needs to prove are three things: Can compliance and privacy coexist within the same system? Are institutions willing to connect their real settlement processes? Can a reusable product loop be formed between Airwallex's payment network and the flow of on-chain assets?
Whoever can integrate licenses, local payments, APIs, compliance, AI Agents, and tokenized assets into the same infrastructure will have the opportunity to evolve on-chain finance from 'faster dollars' towards a truly usable global settlement system.
