Airwallex vs Revolut Business Australia: global currency accounts with differences

With the arrival of global accounts, business owners can choose a smarter solution than the big, traditional banks.

Two of the most popular global business accounts in Australia are Revolut and Airwallex. We’ve used both for years (not just for testing) and felt the benefits of multi-currency accounts for our wallets and transfer speeds.

But these accounts are not just for cheap currency exchanges – they’re also great interfaces that are fun to use. Both platforms are keen on simplifying payments, expenses and money management.

They integrate with the accounting system Xero, with Airwallex slightly ahead here, as we’ll explain below.

Which is our favourite, and which will bring the biggest benefits to your business?

Currencies and local accounts: different coverage

At the heart of Airwallex and Revolut is not just a single account, but a number of currency accounts within your main account.

The main difference between them? Only Airwallex offers multiple currency accounts with a country’s local bank details, not just SWIFT details. It can open up to 15 local accounts, depending on the country you’re registered in. It also lets you hold, exchange and send op to 21 currencies.

Have a supplier in Malaysia? Pay them directly from a local account in ringgit with Airwallex, and expect them to receive it almost immediately.

Revolut lets you open over 25 currency accounts where you can hold, exchange and send money from – a few more than Airwallex. However, the only local account details you get are for your Australian account. The currency accounts only have SWIFT, not local, details.

This means your USD account in Revolut needs to wait a few days to receive a SWIFT transfer from the US, and vice versa when you’re sending money to the US.

In any case, the specific currencies supported and associated fees vary between the solutions. We therefore recommend checking which platform aligns better with your currency requirements, for example whether it deals with the currencies you transact in.

App: Revolut has the edge

If you prefer to do business via an app, Revolut is the better choice.

Revolut started out as an account for private individuals and spent years perfecting their main app. This shines through in the Business app as well.

I didn’t used to think much of the Revolut Business app when I first signed up, and it’s not always been intuitive to find certain functions. Still, it is regularly updated and improved, which helps quash bugs and highlight account features better.

The Airwallex app gives you an overview of accounts and cards, not much else. The web interface is where you do business, not the app. This is a bit strange for a modern account that many will look to for mobile banking.

Web dashboard: Airwallex is our preference

Both banking platforms let you manage their accounts from a web browser, and this is where Airwallex shines.

We always log into the Airwallex dashboard on a computer, where we find all the account features in one place. It’s very easy (dare we say fun?) to navigate, unlike legacy accounts from ordinary banks.

The Revolut Business account is similarly easy to manage from a web browser, but it’s taken a while to make it as useful as their app. I personally prefer the Revolut Business app, because you know all the features are there.

It’s always been the case that Revolut requires your phone for random things anyway – even to scan a QR code to log into the browser dashboard.

Fees and plans: different approaches

All Revolut Business accounts cost a monthly fee depending on the plan and whether you pay monthly or annually upfront:

• Revolut Business Grow: A$25/month on a monthly plan, A$21/month if paying annually
• Revolut Business Scale: A$100/month on a monthly plan, A$79/month if paying annually

The main difference between them is the amount of reduced fees you get for transfers and currency exchanges.

With Grow, you can exchange $15,000 at the interchange bank rate, which rises to $75,000 on Scale. Grow gives 5 free international and 100 local transfers per month, compared with 25 international and 1,000 local transfers on Scale.

Is this enough to justify an upgrade? That depends on how much you use these transfers and exchange currencies.

Airwallex, on the other hand, started out as a pay-as-you-go service with no monthly fees whatsoever. This has changed. From the summer of 2024, Airwallex launched monthly fee plans in Australia.

There’s still an option of a free account, though: the Explore plan. This costs nothing as long as you have a minimum balance of A$10,000 or deposit at least A$5,000 every month. If you don’t, it costs $29 per month.

The next Airwallex plan, Grow, costs $99 per month no matter what. Instead of adding more free transfers or lower rates, Grow adds more features that would suit a growing business in need of controlling spending and company budgets.

Custom plans with tailored pricing for enterprises are available from both platforms.

Virtual and physical cards: Airwallex a bit more limited

Both Airwallex and Revolut include physical and virtual debit cards in their subscriptions, but the number of cards differ. Let’s compare what their cheapest plans include free:

• Airwallex Explore ($0 or $29/mo): 2 employee card users per month + 10 company cards
• Revolut Business Grow ($21-$25/mo): 3 physical + 200 virtual cards per team member, 1 metal corporate card

Upgrading Revolut Business to Scale ($79-$100/month) adds one more free metal card and the ability to customise the debit cards. Upgrading Airwallex to Grow ($99/month) raises the allowance of free company cards to 50 and adds expense management for cards, which Revolut includes on the cheaper plan as standard.

So if your company has a large team that needs individual budgets and expense cards, Revolut can issue more free cards to unlimited staff, and cards can be managed with complex expenditure rules on the most affordable plan.

We also had a slightly annoying experience with Airwallex – they changed our card details as they were moving to a new system. Admittedly, this was quite inconvenient, as it meant having to update card details with service providers like Slack, Xero and Google Workspace that charge monthly.

Expense management: Revolut offers best value

While both platforms offer expense management tools, Revolut Business emphasises automation and real-time notifications, a more dynamic approach to tracking expenses.

I tried to test the limits of Revolut Business expense flows, but felt I didn’t even scratch the surface despite trying all the settings. You can add so many layers of rules, such as setting detailed approval processes so employees can’t go ahead with specific purchases before one (or more) senior users approve of it.

Airwallex has come a long way in developing its expense tools, though, but only really on the Grow plan ($99/month). It gives you similar expense controls as Revolut Grow ($21-$25/month), so it makes sense to go for the latter if you want the best value for your dollars.

Accounting integrations: Xero (not zero) in common

Revolut and Airwallex are serious about money management, so they integrate with accounting software to ease the burden of bookkeeping.

In Australia, Revolut only integrates with Xero and FreeAgent. Airwallex also integrates with Xero, plus QuickBooks and NetSuite.

The companies preferring Xero will therefore not be limited with either business account, but Airwallex would attract more businesses since QuickBooks and NetSuite are similarly popular, and Revolut’s FreeAgent is less known in Australia.

Sign-up and getting approved: ups and downs

The online registration flows for digital accounts like Airwallex and Revolut are a breeze compared with legacy banks.

But the documentation requirements and scrutiny that global money laundering regulations have enforced on banking services mean that the process is far from easy. We’re talking about KYC (Know Your Customer) requirements, which have become quite the pain.

The first part of sign-up before submission of documents is fairly smooth with Revolut. When we opened a Revolut Business account, the process was entirely online – more precisely, through the Revolut Business app.

Airwallex tends to provide a more personalised experience, but from the stories we’ve heard, it’s usually harder to get approval. For us, though, it took 6 days from our initial sign-up to our first deposit into the account.

After signing up with Airwallex, we were contacted by an account specialist for a personalised video meeting as part of the verification process. It was friendly, to-the-point and lasted less than 30 minutes. The documents requested were nothing out of the ordinary: IDs of owners and company registration documents.

You don’t get that kind of personal experience from Revolut, who has automated the document requests with app notifications requesting various info from time to time. It’s been a little frustrating for me, as I’ve submitted the same info again and again over the years, as if they don’t keep a record of it.

Which is best? Consider what you need

Revolut Business and Airwallex both have excellent account features that suit small-to-very large businesses. The best choice just depends on what you’re looking for in your daily business dealings.

For the fastest, cheapest transfers, we recommend Airwallex highly for its local accounts, but only if you can open them in the specific countries where you send and receive money regularly.

While Revolut saves you transfer and exchange fees too, it doesn’t work for local, free transfer methods in foreign countries, since its currency accounts only have SWIFT details. But if you deal with currency exchanges all the time, Revolut has some excellent features to get the lowest possible rates.

How you bank also makes a difference. Airwallex has a more pleasant browser dashboard, but limited app. In contrast, the Revolut Business app handles all your account dealings, so it’s better on the go.

Managing expenses and staff spendings can be done with both, but at a lower cost through Revolut.

We should also highlight that both accounts accept companies, but only Airwallex accepts tradies – so that’s an easy choice for freelancers.