To recap: in 2015, two parallel payment networks were launched – both designed to bypass SWIFT.
• October 2015: the People’s Bank of China activates the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) to “provide clearing and settlement for cross-border RMB” and reduce reliance on SWIFT.
• December 2015: four founders raised in China incorporate @Airwallex in Melbourne, describing it as a “proprietary global network in parallel to SWIFT.”
Ten years later…
> Airwallex routes payments for tens of thousands of U.S. companies, including AI labs, defense contractors, and financial institutions.
> Roughly 40% of its 2,000 employees work in mainland China and Hong Kong, many in engineering roles that “design and maintain mission-critical payment systems.”
> Those employees and executives fall under the PRC National Intelligence Law (Arts. 7 & 10) and Hong Kong National Security Law, both of which require cooperation with state-security requests and prohibit disclosure.
> The company’s Chinese investors – Tencent, HongShan (formerly Sequoia China), and others – hold more than 20% of equity.
> Airwallex (Guangzhou) is one of only two “foreign” companies to hold a PBOC-issued payment license, integrating it into domestic Chinese clearing systems.
On December 8, 2025, the Australian Financial Review reported that an Airwallex executive warned internally that requests for wider customer-data access were originating from staff in China. And the company separately announced a “dual global headquarters” in San Francisco to fuel continued U.S. expansion. No major corporate officers seem to live in SF.
Beijing’s 2024–25 policy line calls for building a “自主可控的跨境支付体系” – an autonomous, controllable cross-border payment system.
Again this morning, Airwallex’s CEO told CNBC: “We built a global network in parallel to the SWIFT system… applying AI agents to create full autonomous finance.”
Same year, same goal, same vocabulary.
A company founded by Chinese nationals, majority-engineered in China, primarily owned by Chinese investors, and operating under Chinese law has become a de facto non-SWIFT payments network and now moves financial data for thousands of U.S. and global firms in critical industries.
Airwallex doesn’t just compete with SWIFT – it completes Beijing’s plan to see inside it.
The result: a Western-facing fintech that doubles as a lawful intelligence window into sensitive U.S. companies.
Quoted context
These are the quoted author’s words.
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Cool growth chart. Have you disclosed to US customers like @Rippling, @Billcom, @TheZipHyouQ, @brexHQ, and @Navan that you’re quietly sending their customers’ data to China?
Airwallex has become a Chinese backdoor into sensitive American data like from AI labs and defense contractors. You must already know this, but your China-based ops, infra, and investors create legal obligations to assist with CCP espionage upon request.
Through Airwallex, Beijing can access:
•supplier payments for AI labs
•payroll data for defense contractors
•personal data for employees abroad
Obviously many companies do business in China, and that’s not inherently a bad thing. But your company has become a guaranteed vector for data transfer to the Chinese government, and that’s a different thing entirely.
You have multiple points of vulnerability:
> people (key execs and core engineering team is based in mainland China, which obligates these individuals to comply with Chinese government demands to hand over data)
> legal structure (company leaders are subject to Chinese national security law)
> cap table (over 20% of your company is Chinese-owned, including Tencent, HongShan, and others, which further obligates you to comply with CCP requests).
What’s happening:
> You route global payments for US companies in critical sectors, without disclosing that you are under Chinese jurisdiction
> You moved HQ to Singapore, but your largest operational footprint is in China and hundreds of your engineers in mainland China touch production payment systems
> You are subject to Chinese law that requires Airwallex employees to support CCP intelligence requests and quietly hand over data when asked
> You hide this from your customers, but you are well aware of your obligations to China and that is why you insist on protection of Chinese data access in your contracts
Thanks to you, the Chinese government now has direct, covert, legally enforceable access to sensitive financial information belonging to America’s AI labs, defense contractors, financial institutions, healthcare firms, and Fortune 500s. Maybe this wasn’t your intent when you started the company, but it’s clear you’ve allowed this to happen.
rabois ↗