Trulioo Unlocks Global Expansion for Airwallex

Regulatory compliance and fraud prevention are a core part of Airwallex’s mission to simplify global payments and financial operations for companies around the world.

More than 100,000 companies worldwide trust the global financial platform’s software, APIs and financial infrastructure to help them operate without borders in an ever-expanding digital economy. That trust stems from Airwallex navigating a nuanced regulatory landscape that makes compliance a complex operation in regions around the world.

As a unified global payments and financial operations platform, Airwallex maintains more than 60 licenses and permits across the globe. Beyond the company’s money transmitter licenses in 42 U.S. jurisdictions, it adheres to regulations set by, among others, the:

• Monetary Authority of Singapore
• Australian Securities and Investments Commission
• Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada 
• Financial Conduct Authority of the U.K.
• Dutch Central Bank

One of the most common elements for compliance across all regulatory authorities is robust verification during onboarding that ensures all new customers are real, trustworthy people or credible business entities.

Fraud Doesn’t Sleep

The payments and remittance industries can be attractive targets for fraudsters. From data breaches to deepfakes, bad actors wield an evolving arsenal. 

One way fraudsters try to infiltrate payments companies during onboarding is through presentation attacks. Those include printing a picture of an ID or showing an ID image on a screen. But fraudsters are also increasingly using more advanced techniques such as wearing silicone masks or generating faces with AI.

With more than $100 billion in global payments processed annually, Airwallex needed sophisticated, dynamic systems to fight fraud and protect customers.

Airwallex tapped Trulioo to help keep fraud at bay while expanding rapidly across new regulatory jurisdictions.

With Trulioo, Airwallex can verify people and businesses anywhere through ID documents, biometrics and a network of hundreds of authoritative data sources, including government registries and credit bureaus.

The collaboration began in 2017 when Airwallex chose Trulioo to verify people in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. As Airwallex grew, the partnership expanded to verification in the Americas. 

In 2022, Airwallex added Business Verification through the comprehensive Trulioo platform to efficiently break down the silos between verifying businesses and their owners. 

The Trulioo Identity Document Verification functionality helps Airwallex stay ahead of growing fraud threats. By adding liveness detection to ID document capture and facial biometrics, the company can expose attempts at fraudulent onboarding. 

Out of 82 algorithms tested by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, those used in Trulioo Identity Document Verification scored in the top five for security, or maximum fraud attempts detected, and convenience, or minimum false positives. In 2024, Airwallex saw its automatic document verification increase through Trulioo, which led to a median automatic processing time decrease.

The combination of Identity Document Verification and Trulioo Person Match gives Airwallex another powerful tool. The blended capabilities can match the personally identifiable information (PII) extracted from an ID document to records in official databases to catch synthetic IDs.

“Trulioo delivers a dynamic solution, enabling Airwallex to adapt our identity workflows over time to outpace fraud and maintain compliance,” said Elliot Colquhoun, vice president, IT & Information Security at Airwallex. “Partners like Trulioo are essential to effectively identify and block fraud so that we can ensure the security of over 100,000 global businesses while allowing legitimate transactions to proceed without interruption.”

The Trulioo platform’s flexibility has been key to the partnership’s success. Airwallex can control its identity verification configuration at a granular level to meet regional requirements. 

Out of the more than 14,000 ID document types Trulioo can verify, Airwallex can limit the options it presents to users in each region based on regulatory limitations. For example, some regulators stipulate that foreign driver’s licenses or regional health cards are not suitable proof of identity, so Airwallex can remove them as options.

Trulioo also provides a combination of integration options, from a hosted SDK for image capture to the Trulioo API available for all services. That flexibility allows Airwallex to adapt to meet the needs of customers anywhere in the world.

Global Expansion Unlocked

Trulioo has verified identity documents from 181 countries for Airwallex. That includes passports representing 162 countries, ID cards from 119 countries and 104 types of driver’s licenses. 

Airwallex leverages Trulioo across the Americas, Europe and APAC. Trulioo delivers ongoing custom performance analysis and optimization, leading to continual improvements in PII verification.

Dynamic Toolkit for Evolving Regulations

With Trulioo, Airwallex verifies businesses and their owners as well as individuals. 

Airwallex also can efficiently access developer resources through the Trulioo Developer Portal and use the Trulioo API to facilitate global data transfer from all companies to a single end point. For Document Verification, Airwallex benefits from a no-code, hosted image capture SDK. Airwallex can quickly adjust its verification workflows to comply with regulatory requirements anywhere in the world.

Airwallex is a leading global financial platform for modern businesses, offering trusted solutions to manage everything from payments, treasury, and spend management to embedded finance. With our proprietary infrastructure, Airwallex takes the friction out of global payments and financial operations, empowering businesses of all sizes to unlock new opportunities and grow beyond borders. Proudly founded in Melbourne, Airwallex supports over 100,000 businesses globally and is trusted by brands such as Brex, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, SHEIN and many more. For more information, visit www.airwallex.com.