Airwallex is a global technology company that offers a range of products designed to simplify payments and financial operations for digital businesses of all sizes. From virtual accounts to online store integrations, their goal is to offer a suite of services that scale with online businesses and enable them to grow beyond borders.
As the first design hire on the core banking team, I led the design of essential financial systems that enable customers to use Airwallex as the primary bank for their business. By providing a superior banking experience that caters to modern business needs, the goal was to drive growth in total deposits and currency conversions.
As more businesses embrace a digital-first approach with global
ambitions, there is a growing demand for modern banking solutions
that can scale and facilitate seamless payments and transactions
across multiple currencies.
At Airwallex, I worked in close collaboration with customers to
design wallet and virtual account functionalities to ensure that
users can easily monitor their currency balances and stay informed
of their finances at all times. In addition, users can easily spin
up international accounts from the dashboard quickly and incorporate
them into their business workflow.
Small business owners often find it challenging to manage and
convert currencies. Most traditional banks provide FX services that
are clouded with hidden fees or markups with few cost-saving
alternatives that meet their needs. Across multiple research studies
and interviews, customers were increasingly requesting for more
control over their FX trades and voiced the need for more advanced
features. Moreover, cancellations were not built into the app and
had to be made manually.
To address these issues, I drove projects to extend currency
conversion capabilities to include Limit Orders and Cancellations.
These provide additional flexibility and transparency to clients,
allowing them to convert as they wish and have better management of
their conversions without being hit with unexpected charges.
Reports are essential for many businesses. Be it showing
statements to authorities to prove ownership of a company or to
perform reconciliation, business owners need to generate detailed
reports of their account activity.
Working in close collaboration with engineers, I helped turn a
sluggish and error-prone synchronous system into a seamless
asynchronous experience that allows reports to be generated in the
background. Once the reports or statements are ready, users can
return to the app to download the files. A new revamped interface
also helps users identify which serves their needs best.
Funding an account is an important part of the user journey and a
crucial feature to get right. Most users will need to fund their
accounts before making payments and transfers. Furthermore, adequate
funds must be allocated to cover routine business expenses.
To streamline the funding experience, I designed an automated top-up
feature so that customers will not run short of money when recurring
bills and payments come around. Once balances fall below a
threshold, funds will be pulled from a designated bank account.
Operating in a large number of currencies and managing the movement
of funds can be challenging. After conducting multiple customer deep
dives, it became apparent that there was a necessity for alerts to
be triggered whenever currency balances drop below a particular
threshold. This would provide users with timely notifications,
enabling them to take corrective measures.
Working with cross-domain stakeholders and partners, I helped
establish a scalable notification framework that is able to send the
right notifications at the right time. This prevents late payments
and declined transactions due to a lack of funds, ensuring seamless
business continuity.
These efforts and refinements to the core banking experience
contributed to significant growth in account balances and currency
conversions, surpassing initial goals and targets. It also helped
position Airwallex to become the primary bank of choice for
clients globally.
In my first year with the company, I helped drive an increase of
over US$300 million in the total wallet balance and achieved over
74% YOY increase in total new deposits.