The Truth About Global Payments, Revealed by Airwallex

链捕手Publicado em 2026-05-28Última atualização em 2026-05-28

Resumo

The article discusses Airwallex's approach to global payments, highlighting the key challenges and different strategic paths in the industry. It begins by addressing common user questions about platform reliability, cryptocurrency payments, and the necessity of Airwallex's "heavy" infrastructure model. The core argument is that while many payment platforms appear similar on the surface—offering features like global acquiring and multi-currency accounts—their underlying capabilities differ drastically. The piece identifies three primary paths for global payment providers: 1. **Bypassing Traditional Infrastructure (Web3/Crypto):** This path promises efficiency through stablecoins and on-chain settlements but faces significant regulatory hurdles and offers little advantage over established players for mainstream use, often serving only niche or non-compliant markets. 2. **Aggregating/Packaging Existing Infrastructure:** The most common route, where companies layer a better user experience over legacy banking and partner networks. While fast to market, this approach does not solve fundamental issues like dependency on intermediaries, correspondent banking risks, and compliance fragility. 3. **Building Proprietary Global Infrastructure:** The path chosen by Airwallex and similar firms. This involves obtaining local licenses, building direct regulatory relationships, establishing local teams, and controlling the compliance and technology stack. This is the most difficult and...

Author: Gang Ge

After the last article was published, many people messaged me privately, with questions mainly falling into the following categories:

"Such and such platform seems similar, is it reliable?"

"Is digital currency payment less troublesome?"

"Airwallex makes payment so heavy, is it necessary?"

To answer these questions, one can look at the popular article by Airwallex founder Jack Zhang on their official account and X.com (formerly Twitter), titled "The Path of Maximal Resistance: The Spectrum of Global Payments Infrastructure".

Figure 1 Jack Zhang's original tweet

This article not only explains why Airwallex chose the "heavy asset" path but also exposes a long-hidden problem in the global payments industry.

So, what exactly did he talk about? Let me break it down for you.
[Full text: 2966 words, estimated reading time: 10 minutes]

01 Superficial Homogeneity, Core Heterogeneity

When corporate clients choose a payment platform, they are often confused by one problem: the payment companies they talk to all seem to have similar capabilities.

For instance, nearly a hundred global payment companies use a similar script to describe their products: instant settlement, global coverage, serving modern enterprises. Even their features and interfaces are becoming more and more alike.

  • Everyone has global acquiring: By integrating a packaged Visa/MasterCard channel, they can claim to "support 200+ countries and regions";

  • Everyone has global accounts: By partnering with a few banks, they can claim to "collect payments globally with one account, covering 20+ major currencies".

The problem is, while surface-level features look increasingly similar, the underlying capabilities are worlds apart.

Figure 2 Superficial homogeneity masks vast underlying differences

Users also can't see the real differences between platforms in product descriptions, which is why they scrutinize payment institutions over and over regarding costs, background, licenses, and risks.

Ultimately, what corporate clients truly care about is not just the onboarding experience, but also the stability of the fund flow, the robustness of the compliance system, and whether they can operate smoothly after entering a new market.
Therefore, to judge whether a payment platform is reliable, one should not only look at the front-end appearance but also see whether the platform absorbs the complexity itself or passes it on to the client.

02 Three Paths in Global Payments

Since the front-end can't reveal core capabilities, we must return to the underlying layer and clarify the common paths in this industry.

Breaking down the mainstream players in the industry, there are roughly three paths.

Figure 3 Three divergent paths in the evolution of global payments

2.1 First Path: Bypassing Traditional Channels

First path: Web3 Digital Currency Payments

This path generally tells the same story: stablecoins, on-chain settlement, programmable payments, peer-to-peer payments. Compared to traditional payments, it promises a shorter path, faster speed, lower cost; and it hopes to penetrate the consumer retail scene with a low-value, high-frequency narrative.

However, you will find that very few digital currency payment players on this path have survived.

The core reason is not that this path lacks efficiency, but that compared to mainstream payment platforms, new entrants have no substitution advantage, and too much regulatory friction is difficult to resolve in the short term.

Figure 4 First Path: On-chain settlement bypasses traditional channels

Now, mainstream global payment platforms not only possess global payment networks but also deeply integrate into local ecosystems worldwide, building operational teams, forming comprehensive advantages over digital currency payments in technology, service, compliance, and products.

  • Technology: Global payments settle in seconds; merchant settlement to card D1/D0 available;

  • Service: Highly competitive payment costs, mature local operations teams serving clients' last mile;

  • Compliance: Regulatory concerns persist across jurisdictions, leading to significant friction;

  • Product: Mainstream platforms also focus on stablecoin payments; once regulations are clear, they can readily integrate and substitute.

Thus, new players on this path often find themselves left with only fragmented markets mainstream payment institutions are unwilling to serve, and clients in gray/black markets they dare not serve.

This is why many entrepreneurs with Web3 payment dreams ultimately have to bow out.

2.2 Second Path: Wrapping Traditional Infrastructure

This is the most traveled path in the industry: relying on partners, intermediaries, to wrap a layer of packaging around the complex and antiquated underlying architecture, then using better product experience and faster marketing to drive market expansion.

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

But the problem is, it mostly optimizes the front-end rather than rewriting the underlying layer.

Jack Zhang's judgment on this point is straightforward: The core problems remain unchanged—correspondent bank chains, bilateral partnerships, compliance dependency risks, they're all still there.
He also believes: "A sleek interface is already a standard feature, but this doesn't shake the underlying operational logic of global payments."

Figure 5 Second Path: Aggregated gateways wrap infrastructure

Actually, Stripe, with the fastest-growing global market value, tried to acquire Airwallex in 2019 (rejected), and in 2026, there were rumors of acquiring PayPal (also reportedly rejected).

This at least indicates one thing: even the international payment giants that grew rapidly through "tech + light asset connectivity" eventually have to go back and learn the lesson of building infrastructure.

Often, the seemingly lighter path doesn't avoid infrastructure; it just postpones it.

2.3 Third Path: Self-building Global Financial Infrastructure

This is the path chosen by companies like Airwallex, Ant International, Pingpong, LianLian Global: obtaining licenses in jurisdictions where they operate, doing localized operations, maintaining regular communication with regulators, and keeping compliance, technology, and underlying networks as much as possible in their own hands.

This path is the most difficult because it offers almost no shortcuts. It requires sustained high investment, longer cycles, and also implies heavier responsibility.

But Airwallex has been even more resolute in this regard, self-developing full-stack infrastructure, never relying on agents or intermediaries.
This means they must invest heavily to acquire licenses globally, and as a licensed entity, engage in deep communication with local regulators, continuously connect to local compliance institutions, establish local teams, and serve clients to the last mile.

Figure 6 Third Path: Self-building global infrastructure

This heavy-asset investment obviously makes many think it's "not clever enough." Who wouldn't want to take shortcuts? It's just a matter of what value you want to deliver to your clients. If the underlying capabilities are still in someone else's hands, the ones ultimately bearing the uncertainty will definitely be the clients.

03 Platform's "Heaviness" in Exchange for Client's "Lightness"

For corporate clients going global, the most expensive cost is never a payment processing fee, but the fund flow risks that are usually invisible but fatal when problems arise.

For example, a market that was already running smoothly might suddenly have its accounts frozen by banks; a client who already paid for goods might have the funds stuck halfway by a correspondent bank, unable to arrive for a long time; regulatory rule upgrades might require submitting additional documents, collateral, or processes.

These problems may not occur daily, but just one occurrence is enough to disrupt a company's rhythm.

Figure 7 Platform's "heaviness" exchanged for client's "lightness"

Therefore, building solid infrastructure is essentially about keeping as much of the complexity that would otherwise fall on the client within one's own system to digest, using one's own "heaviness" to exchange for the client's "lightness."

04 What Clients Truly Gain

Corporate clients are very pragmatic; they never buy concepts but the value they receive. In cross-border payments, the so-called value boils down to three things: more stable, more cost-effective, more certain.

Figure 8 The value corporate clients truly need

  • More stable, because enterprises don't need to adapt to a new set of partnerships every time they enter a market.

  • More cost-effective, not just saving on processing fees, but also eliminating massive duplicated system costs, communication costs, and compliance costs.

  • More certain, because when market conditions change or regulatory rules tighten, clients rely not on a temporarily patched-together channel, but on a more complete, durable, and cycle-transcending underlying capability.

This is also why Airwallex's growth logic is more like compound interest than explosive growth.

Figure 9 Compound growth brought by infrastructure investment

According to public information, Airwallex took 9 years to achieve $500 million in annualized revenue (ARR), but only one year to grow from $500 million to $1 billion. The initial "slowness" wasn't inefficiency but rather accumulating underlying potential for later acceleration.

05 Final Words

Returning to the initial question, why does Airwallex build its own global financial infrastructure?

Because, the hardest part is precisely the part that cannot be outsourced, is most worthy of long-term investment, and creates 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, a foundation that can help digest complexity and allow you to operate your business more stably.

For the global payments industry, shortcuts may help you run faster, but only by making the hardest part your own capability can you go further.

[References]

[1] Airwallex Official Article: The Path of Maximal Resistance

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

[2] Airwallex Official Article: The Last Mile of Global Payments

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

[3] Sina: Reshaping the Future of Finance

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

Perguntas relacionadas

QAccording to the article, what are the three main paths in the global payment industry landscape?

AThe article outlines three main paths: 1) Web3/Digital Currency Payments, which seeks to bypass traditional financial infrastructure. 2) Wrapping Traditional Infrastructure, where companies layer a better user experience on top of existing, often complex, partner networks. 3) Building Global Financial Infrastructure, which involves obtaining local licenses, building in-country operations, and owning the underlying technology and compliance frameworks.

QWhat is the core argument for why Airwallex and similar companies choose the 'heavy' path of building their own global infrastructure?

AThe core argument is that by building and owning the foundational infrastructure—including licenses, local operations, and compliance networks—the platform absorbs complexity and risk. This allows the company to 'use its own "heaviness" to exchange for the customer's "lightness,"' providing clients with more stability, lower long-term operational costs, and greater certainty when navigating different markets and regulatory changes.

QWhat key problem does the article identify with the 'Wrapping Traditional Infrastructure' approach taken by many payment platforms?

AThe key problem is that this approach primarily optimizes the front-end user experience but does not fundamentally change the underlying payment logic. Core issues like reliance on correspondent banking networks, dependencies on bilateral partnerships, and compliance risks are still present and managed by third parties, meaning the complexity and potential instability are merely masked, not eliminated.

QWhy does the article suggest Web3/digital currency payment startups have struggled to compete with mainstream payment platforms?

AThe article suggests they struggle because mainstream platforms already offer highly efficient services (e.g., fast global payments, low costs, local support) and possess a comprehensive advantage in technology, service, and product. Furthermore, digital currency payments face significant unresolved compliance and regulatory friction. This leaves new Web3 players often serving only fragmented markets or high-risk clients that mainstream platforms avoid.

QWhat three concrete values do enterprise customers ultimately seek from a global payment platform, as stated in the article?

AEnterprise customers seek three concrete values: 1) More Stability ('geng wen'), meaning a consistent operational framework across different markets. 2) More Savings ('geng sheng'), which refers not just to transaction fees but reduced costs for system integration, communication, and compliance. 3) More Certainty ('geng que ding'), which is the assurance of a robust, long-term underlying capability that can withstand market and regulatory shifts.

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