Airwallex vs. Stripe: MENA Expansion Fuels Fintech Rivalry

Few rivalries in fintech carry the personal weight of the one now developing between Stripe and Airwallex. Back in 2019, Stripe offered to buy the Melbourne-based startup for $1.2 billion, when Airwallex had just $2 million in annualized revenue. Airwallex co-founder and CEO Jack Zhang spent weeks wrestling with the decision, at one point agreed to the deal, then flew home to Australia and changed his mind. That choice set the two companies on a collision course that is now playing out across multiple fronts simultaneously.

The numbers make clear how much ground Airwallex has covered since. The company now generates around $1.3 billion in annualized revenue, growing at 85 percent year over year, holds close to 90 regulatory licenses across roughly 50 markets, and processes $100 billion in annual payment volume. It serves more than 46,000 businesses in the United States alone. Stripe, by contrast, was valued at $159 billion in a February 2026 tender offer after processing $1.9 trillion in total payment volume in 2025, making it roughly 20 times Airwallex's valuation. Zhang pushes back on that framing, pointing out that Stripe's payment volume is only about six times Airwallex's, not 20, suggesting the valuation gap reflects market perception more than operational reality.

The competitive strategy Airwallex is pursuing is built around one specific vulnerability in Stripe's model: the cost and complexity of cross-border operations. Where Stripe typically charges merchants 2 to 3 percent to convert funds back into US dollars, Airwallex allows businesses to hold balances in local currencies, pay local vendors, run payroll, and cover marketing costs at interbank rates without the conversion penalty. For multinationals managing operations across multiple countries, that difference is considerable. Airwallex recently pushed further into Stripe's territory by launching a point-of-sale product that allows businesses to accept in-person payments across multiple countries through a single platform, without needing to onboard a separate local vendor in every market.

The rivalry even carries an awkward investor dynamic. Investment firm Greenoaks Capital holds stakes in both companies, and Sequoia, through its now-rebranded China arm Hongshan, remains one of Airwallex's largest shareholders. Zhang and Stripe's Patrick Collison were cordial during the acquisition discussions but no longer. When both attended Greenoaks' annual gathering last year, they did not speak.

In the MENA region, Airwallex's expansion is adding a new dimension to this competition. The company secured in-principle approval from the Central Bank of the UAE for payment and stored value facilities licenses, established a new legal entity in Saudi Arabia through the Ministry of Investment, and partnered with Tabby, the Gulf's leading buy-now-pay-later provider, to embed instalment payment options for merchants across the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The company also committed over $1.1 billion to its broader EMEA expansion over five years. For a region actively building digital payment infrastructure aligned with Vision 2030 and the UAE's own economic agenda, Airwallex's infrastructure-first approach and local licensing push put it in direct competition with Stripe for the same rapidly growing merchant base.

Zhang's longer-range targets are ambitious: a million customers by 2030, $20 billion in annual revenue, and a suite of AI-powered finance agents that execute transactions autonomously. Whether that vision holds depends on whether a company that took six and a half years to reach its first $100 million in revenue can sustain the pace it has set since.