Airwallex enters in-person payments, taking on Stripe and Square

Airwallex is moving into in-person point-of-sale payments, a shift that takes the Australian fintech out of the mostly online lane and into a far more crowded fight with Stripe, Square and Adyen. The company’s new pitch is simple: merchants should not have to stitch together separate local vendors, compliance rules and acquiring relationships every time they enter a new market.

That matters because physical checkout is where payments platforms either deepen their grip on merchants or get reduced to a back-office utility. Airwallex has built its name on cross-border money movement, and its POS product is meant to extend that model into stores, pop-ups and other card-present settings. Its documentation says the feature is a beta available for merchants in Hong Kong and Singapore, and that it supports cards and digital wallets including Apple Pay, Google Pay, WeChat Pay, PayNow and PayMe.

The company is also trying to sell more than hardware. Airwallex says the in-person product is designed to unify online and physical storefronts through integrated POS terminals and hardware solutions. That is the same strategic terrain already claimed by Stripe Terminal, which centers on unified online and in-person commerce, by Square, which markets terminal hardware as part of an all-in-one POS system, and by Adyen, which emphasizes globally supported in-person payments and local payment methods for worldwide use. For merchants, the trade-off is clear: a single platform can simplify reconciliation, settlement and reporting, but only if it performs as well as local specialists on pricing, uptime and regional payment acceptance.

Airwallex enters that contest with a strong balance sheet and a larger story of expansion. The company raised $330 million at an $8 billion valuation in December 2025, and in March 2025 it said annualized revenue had reached $720 million, annualized payments volume topped $130 billion, and it served 150,000 businesses worldwide. TechCrunch reported that Stripe had offered to buy Airwallex for $1.2 billion in 2019, when the startup generated about $2 million in revenue, a reminder of how far the company has come and how much bigger the prize has become.

The latest push also fits a broader Asia-Pacific expansion. Airwallex said on April 1, 2026 that it had secured key regulatory approvals for a full commercial launch in Malaysia, and its April 2026 release notes said it was still adding features and payment methods across the region. For Airwallex, the question is no longer whether it can sell cross-border infrastructure. It is whether that infrastructure gives it a real edge once the fight moves from online checkout to the store counter, where Stripe, Square and Adyen already have entrenched merchant relationships.