The startup aims to ease the headache and cost of cross-border purchases by enabling consumers to buy items from outside of their country using their local currency. In essence it uses the same principles as London-based Transferwise in that it reduces the costs that both merchants and consumers eat up when the two parties are using different currencies. Airwallex CEO and co-founder Jack Zhang came upon the idea after growing tired of the additional cost of importing goods from overseas for a coffee shop business that he invested in while working for banks in Australia. Zhang, formerly with ANZ and NAB, decided that tech could provide a better solution and he founded Airwallex alongside four other co-founders, including CTO Jacob Dai and COO Lucy Yueting Liu, who spent time working foreign exchange for Barclays Bank.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/08/asia-pacific-cross-border-payment-startup-airwallex-lands-3m/