“There’s a real appetite in APAC to be innovative in this space,” said Shannon Scott, SVP and Global Head of Product at Airwallex, in an interview with Finance Magnates. He added that “when it comes to real-time payments, APAC leads the charge.”
Scott has been a part of Airwallex for more than four years now. He joined the company as a Product Director in March 2020 and was promoted after a couple of years. At Airwallex, he is responsible for the global product organization for domains ranging from card issuing to payment acceptance and from business accounts to platform APIs.
“APAC Is a Leader in Digital Wallet Usage”
Highlighting the rise in cashless payments in the APAC region, he said: “Digital wallets and government initiatives are leading to a shift towards cashless transactions, and the APAC payments gateway market is tipped to rise 30 percent as the cashless economy continues to expand.”
“Furthermore, APAC is a leader in digital wallet usage, thanks to the likes of Alipay and WeChat Pay,” he added. “A global e-commerce report by Airwallex earlier this year found that 59 percent of consumers will likely make online purchases from international merchants through social media platforms. Consumers in China (86 percent), Hong Kong (76 percent), and Singapore (62 percent) showed the highest appetite for social commerce.”
Airwallex offers payment platforms to businesses, which involve the management of a wide range of services, including business accounts, payments, treasury, spend management, and embedded finance. According to the company, it has 100,000 business clients globally, with some big names like Brex, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, and SHEIN.
With more than 1,500 employees globally, it operates from 23 offices located strategically in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States.
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“We recognize the important role regulatory bodies and central banks have in the payments ecosystem, and work closely with these entities as we grow our global footprint,” Scott continued, adding: “This is why Airwallex has worked to obtain and maintain over 60 licenses and registrations around the world, an industry-leading achievement.”
“As a global business, Airwallex is driven by a focused global vision and approach that is then localized to meet the diverse needs of each market. For example, we take note of variations in local payment preferences, i.e., North American companies might be more accustomed to traditional methods like checks, while Asian counterparts might prefer digital wallets. This ‘glocalisation’ strategy enables us to tailor our product and rollout strategy as required,” he explained.
“A Lot of Technical Hurdles to Solve for Blockchain-Based Systems”
The payments industry is also witnessing disruption from adopting new technologies like blockchain. However, Scott believes that “there are still a lot of technical hurdles to solve, and more importantly, regulatory compliance needs to be held to the highest standards; it’s imperative for the safe interoperability and scalability of financial infrastructure.”
Despite the challenges, he is optimistic about the future of blockchain-based payment infrastructure, as he said: “In the long term, there is a lot of opportunity for distributed and accountable ledgers that will create strengthened accountability and other opportunities in the payments ecosystem.”
“Being a multi-currency platform, our product is well suited to incorporate many different formats, including blockchain-based systems.”
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“Our Customers Benefit from AI”
Artificial intelligence (AI) is another technological advancement impacting almost every tech-driven sector, including payments. “We’ll continue to see AI advance in terms of its complexity and the specificity of tasks it can perform – in payments and all other industries,” said Scott.
Highlighting the potential areas where AI can excel, he said: “The fintech and financial services industry must comply with strict regulatory and compliance guidelines that often depend on manual processes in areas like information security, compliance support, KYC onboarding, and transaction monitoring. These manual, error-prone, and time-consuming tasks, such as reviewing business descriptions, are prime candidates for AI-driven automation.”
“I’m also excited to see our customers benefit from AI helping to streamline their everyday business functions, such as accounts payable, where invoices can be uploaded and automatically parsed into structured data for approval and payment,” he continued. “Expect AI to continue to improve business processes in the near term, in areas such as payment optimization, spend understanding, and more.”
