Demonstrating the economic benefits of Airwallex in Australia

Airwallex has built integrated financial infrastructure for Australian businesses

Airwallex has grown to serve 47,000 Australian businesses since inception, facilitating around $49 billion in annual transactions, most of it ($38 billion) for small and medium businesses. Customers cite better value, superior functionality, and simplicity of setup as the primary reasons for choosing Airwallex.

Australian businesses are facing a prolonged productivity slowdown. Annual productivity growth has fallen from an average of 2.2 per cent in the 1990s to 0.1 per cent in the 2020s, one of the weakest sustained periods of productivity growth in more than 30 years. Airwallex replaces fragmented financial tools with a single integrated platform, reducing costs, delays and manual effort.

Airwallex supports $4.6 billion in economic benefits for Australia

The model compares Airwallex customers against comparable businesses on other financial platforms, weighted by business size, and applies input-output modelling to capture supply-chain effects.

Of the $4.6 billion supported in 2025, $2.5 billion flows directly to platform businesses:

• $1.4 billion in productivity, from time freed from financial administration tasks and the share of revenue growth attributed to productivity gains
• $0.9 billion in new market growth, from revenue gains as businesses enter or expand into international markets
• $0.2 billion in cost savings, from reduced FX fees, SWIFT fees and platform consolidation

The remainder reaches the broader economy as those benefits move through customers' supply chains. Airwallex supports 29,000 jobs across the Australian economy, including 16,000 direct jobs and 13,000 indirect jobs. A quarter of Airwallex's economic impact, over $1.1 billion, flows to regional, rural and remote communities.

Airwallex drives productivity, growth and resilience for Australian SMBs

SMBs capture $2.1 billion in economic benefits annually, the largest share of any business segment on the platform. On average, each SMB captures $200,000 per year, and saves $13,400 through lower FX conversion costs, reduced SWIFT fees and platform consolidation, equivalent to more than one and a half months of the average Australian wage.

Airwallex SMB customers save four times more time on financial tasks each week than non-Airwallex customers. Airwallex customers save around 12.4 hours per week on financial tasks, worth around $17,000 per year to the average SMB, reinvesting that capacity into higher-value work like financial insights and strategic planning.

Airwallex SMBs report 13 per cent annual revenue growth post adoption, 4 percentage points above non-Airwallex peers, supported by international expansion and market diversification.

Read the full report here.