Bird, a communications platform originally known as MessageBird, has teamed up with Airwallex to enhance its global payments operations. With its API-driven customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, Bird enables businesses to engage with customers across various channels like email, SMS, and WhatsApp, managing over 5 trillion messages annually.
The decision to partner with Airwallex stems from Bird’s need to upgrade its payments infrastructure. Legacy systems struggled to handle multiple currencies efficiently across different operating entities, leading to operational fragmentation. Bird faced challenges in managing supplier payments creation and approval, as well as reconciling transactions with its accounting software.
By collaborating with Airwallex, Bird aims to provide its finance team with improved consistency, speed, and depth of reconciliation. Airwallex’s global payments and financial infrastructure will power Bird’s in-house foreign exchange engine and issuing solution, allowing for a consolidated financial operation across currencies and entities on a unified platform.
The partnership has already yielded positive results, facilitating the streamlining of Bird’s financial operations. Looking ahead, both companies are exploring further collaboration opportunities. Robert Vis, Bird’s founder and CEO, confirms their ongoing exploration of Airwallex’s product offerings.
Airwallex, founded in Melbourne, Australia in 2015 and headquartered in Singapore, offers a range of treasury and spend management products, alongside embedded finance and payments solutions. The company expanded its reach into Latin America through the acquisition of Mexican paytech MexPago in the previous year.
