Airwallex slashes costs for domestic payments processing

Businesses across Australia could save up to $12,000 each year after Australian-born financial platform Airwallex slashed the cost of online payments processing for domestic credit and debit cards by nearly 30 per cent.

From Monday 27 March, Airwallex’s new and existing Australian business customers will see a 45 basis point reduction in what they pay to take online payments done by domestic credit and debit cards – down from 1.65 per cent to 1.20 per cent per payment plus 30 cents. This compares to other major providers charging between 1.75% and 2.20% plus 30 cents to process each online payment.

Airwallex Head of Strategy for Australia, Matt Sek (pictured), said the price drop would save businesses thousands of dollars in transaction costs, particularly leading into the busy Easter and Mother’s Day periods.

“We know the cost of doing business has only been going up, so cutting back payments costs will mean businesses can keep more of what they earn,” Matt said.

“These mates rates for our customers means cheaper products and services for their customers and more growth.

“We’ve made a commitment to invest in our Australian customers, and as they succeed, so do we.”

Savings scenarios:     

• An average business doing $100,000 a month in domestic transactions in Australia would save $12,000 per year in transaction fees from the change, compared to other companies’ offerings at up to 2.2%.
• A smaller business doing $20,000 a month in transactions would save $2,400 per year.
• A business doing $50,000 a month in transactions would save $6,000 per year.

Matt said Airwallex had doubled-down its investment into building leading online payments infrastructure in Australia and abroad, which meant it could lower its transaction fees.

“We’ve been investing in our online payments infrastructure as we grow which means we can pass on the cost savings by dropping our prices for our merchant customers,” Matt said.

“We’re a modern payments platform built from the ground up for modern businesses of any size – which means we don’t have all the baggage of banks or other legacy payment platforms.

“In recent weeks we’ve seen other payments businesses announce increases in transaction costs, but at Airwallex we’re taking a different approach.

“Not only does our online payment gateway make it easier to accept domestic and international payments for businesses, but our fee change will make it even cheaper too.”

Airwallex processes nearly $50 billion in transactions each year and powers more than 6,000 businesses in Australia.