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ANZ Bank continues to provide key transactional services for Airwallex, despite the heavily hyped payments ‘unicorn’ being turned down by two major banks over money laundering compliance concerns and onboarding clients that violate the big four giant’s internal policies.
The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald this week revealed that NAB terminated key banking services from $3 billion-valued Airwallex - one of the nation’s most hyped fintech startups, in 2018. Multiple sources said the services were pulled due to red flags around Airwallex’s customers and suspicious transaction patterns. Airwallex subsequently approached Citigroup, but was unsuccessful.
ANZ provides transactional banking services for Airwallex’s customers, despite the fintech being turned away by NAB and Citi. Credit:Pat Scala
Airwallex has strongly defended its approach to compliance and denies any wrongdoing.
This masthead has confirmed that major bank ANZ has provided transactional services to the company since 2017. Its venture capital arm ANZi Ventures has also made two widely reported investments into the company.
An ANZ spokesman said the bank cannot discuss individual customers but was fully aware of its legal obligations to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing. “We conduct additional due diligence on any business involved in international payments,” the spokesman said.
ANZ also has a policy that prohibits its own clients like Airwallex from taking on ‘remitters’ – other companies that send or receive money – as clients.
But internal documents obtained by The Age and Herald show Airwallex signed an agreement with Chinese payments company Onerway in 2018 and was in discussions with at least 17 other money transer businesses. They include emerging markets payments platform Apacpay, EasiPay and Baofu, which also has cryptocurrency operations.
The internal documents reveal Airwallex forecast it would process $71 million worth of transactions globally for Onerway that year. Onerway transfers money globally for e-commerce companies and individuals, as well as offering a range of other financial services, according to its website.
Melbourne-based Airwallex has over the past five years emerged as one of Australia’s most celebrated startups. The company enables small businesses to quickly and cheaply send money to 130 countries in 23 currencies, according to its website.