Commercial Payments International

This week, two impending payments companies, Airwallex and Thunees make inroads in Asian markets.

In the former, Airwallex, an Australian cross-border payments company has announced that it has started operations in Singapore after it was granted a Major Payment Institution licence by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

The company in its press release noted that the businesses in Singapore can now take advantage of Airwallex’s global payment services which include global account issuance, domestic and cross-border money transfer, multi-currency wallets, and online payments acceptance.

Back in November 2021, Airwallex secured a payments license in Singapore. Before that, it expanded into North America and also secured payments licences in Malaysia.

The clients using Airwallex would be able to receive funds locally in SGD and the company also noted that other offerings such as multi-currency company and employee cards, spend management and an API suite would be rolled out progressively later.

In the latter, B2B payments company, Thunes announced its plan to expand its operations in Greater China which spans mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau.

The company in its press note stated that the company will ‘intensify’ its focus on building partnerships with local digital payments companies which would enable businesses and consumers to make payments to and from China.

In 2021, Thunes and Bexs Banco teamed up to enable real-time payments to Brazil while in Asian markets, Thunes partnered with Siam Commercial Bank for cross-border payments.

The company will also pilot its virtual account service to connect China-based Payment Service Providers to Indonesia e-commerce buyers and make it easier for businesses in China to sell services in Southeast Asia markets and receive payments in local currency.

Thunes has a presence in over 110 countries with 260 clients and network partners around the globe and is used by global banks, money transfer operators, and platforms. The payment platform got its payments licence from MAS back in 2019 and before that, it used to operate globally via regulatory oversight from the UK Financial Conduct Authority.

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