Plaid and Airwallex Team to Streamline Payments

Australian FinTech Airwallex has teamed with Plaid to offer streamlined payments.

According to a Wednesday (Dec. 7) news release, the partnership lets Airwallex offer faster Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments and a safer, cost-efficient way or customers to authorize debits from their bank accounts.

“With the Plaid integration, Airwallex customers will also be able to instantly and securely verify their bank accounts in the United States,” the release said.

“These verifications are used by Airwallex’s direct debit capabilities, either for adding funds to their Airwallex wallet from an external bank account or for merchants to accept payments from customers within Airwallex’s payment acceptance business.”

Airwallex was valued at $5.5 billion in October after raising $100 million, funds the company said it would use to support its international market expansions as well as its strengths in powering payments and banking infrastructure.

The partnership comes as all-in-one payment platforms have become a staple for smaller businesses, as recent PYMNTS research has found.

Nearly 6 in 10 small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) say these tools save time, and 52% say they result in easier cash flow management. Forty-one percent were able to simplify receivables tracking, and 32% saw improvements in working capital.

Still, a lot of businesses remain unconvinced. While a little more than three-quarters of executives surveyed said SMBs would benefit from all-in-one platforms, not all SMBs understood these benefits.

Fifty-seven percent of SMBs had no interest in switching to such tools, as they were worried about complicating their accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) processes.

Just 18% of SMBs were very or extremely interested in trying an all-in-one payments platform to get payments, mostly expressing concerns about complexity and cost of use.