Visa and Airwallex plan embedded finance tools for freight platforms

Visa and Airwallex announced a collaboration to build financial infrastructure for freight and shipping platforms, with a focus on payments, working capital and cross-border commerce. The companies said the effort is aimed at a sector where payment delays, foreign-exchange handling and manual administration can weigh on cash flow and operating costs.

The initiative combines Visa’s commercial payments capabilities, acceptance strategy, risk management and sector-specific product design with Airwallex’s embedded-finance technology, multi-currency infrastructure and global platform, according to the companies.

Freight platforms, digital forwarders and logistics marketplaces increasingly digitise how shipments are booked and managed. Visa and Airwallex said the financial layer supporting those transactions has often remained fragmented, creating settlement delays and additional administrative work for companies moving goods across borders.

According to the announcement, payments in shipping take an average of 42 days to reach the company issuing the invoice. The companies also said processing and administration can account for almost one-fifth of total transportation costs, partly because of labour-intensive document handling.

How the model is intended to work

The companies plan to create embedded-finance tools that freight platforms can place directly inside their existing workflows. In practice, that means a platform could offer payment and related financial functions at the point where users already book, manage or pay for shipments, rather than sending customers to separate banking or payments processes.

Visa and Airwallex said the products are being designed around the operating needs of freight and shipping rather than as a generic payments layer. The stated aim is to help platform customers manage costs, obtain working capital when required and move money across countries and currencies with less operational friction.

Embedded finance has become a way for software platforms and marketplaces to add financial services inside business processes. In freight, the mechanism can be relevant because transactions frequently involve several jurisdictions, multiple currencies, intermediaries and a gap between invoice issuance and receipt of funds.

The companies said the collaboration builds on their existing relationship in cross-border business-to-business payments. They described the freight initiative as a move toward more specialised products for complex B2B sectors where payments infrastructure has not matched the pace of digital adoption.

Alessandro Figueroa, head of new verticals and partnerships at Visa Commercial Solutions in Europe, said freight and shipping remain central to global commerce while many firms still work with fragmented and manual payment processes. He said combining Visa’s commercial payments expertise with Airwallex’s platform is intended to help bring products to market that can simplify payments and improve working-capital management for freight platforms and their customers.

Christos Chamberlain, Airwallex’s general manager for the UK and Europe, said cross-border payment delays can tie up capital that freight operators could otherwise use for shipments. He said the collaboration with Visa is intended to give operators greater speed and precision in payments.

This story draws on original reporting from Finextra Research.