Airwallex Enlists Plaid in an Effort to Streamline ACH Transactions for Its Merchants

Airwallex, an Australia-based fintech, has partnered with Plaid Inc. to enable merchants in the United States to streamline transactions initiated through the automated clearing house. Airwallex merchants can leverage Plaid’s open-banking technology to authorize adding funds to their Airwallex wallet from an external bank account or to accept payments from customers within Airwallex’s payment-acceptance business.

Airwallex has operations in Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America, and plans to continue expanding its presence in the U.S. market, the company says.

“Through this integration, customers can authenticate the payers’ bank accounts without the complexity and time that usually comes with traditional ACH processing,” Ravi Adusumilli, global head of partnerships and general manager, Americas for Airwallex says in a prepared statement. “Enabling a more seamless customer experience like we are with Plaid is exactly why Airwallex was built. We are providing easier access to a global financial infrastructure, and can in turn, empower businesses to operate any time, anywhere.”

The deal builds on Plaid’s strategy of speeding payments through the ACH while reducing risk. Earlier this month, Plaid rolled out Signal, a machine-learning risk engine it had been piloting for more than a year with customers that generate high ACH volumes. Signal is said to speed ACH transactions and make them more secure by analyzing more than 1,000 unique risk factors and more than 60 attributes. Plaid is a specialist in the burgeoning field of open-banking technology.

“The digital financial ecosystem is all about enabling faster, easier, and more secure ways to move funds,” Tamara Romanek, head of partnerships for Plaid, says in a prepared statement. “Partners like Airwallex ensure that customers have a seamless and safer way to make ACH transfers for account funding.”