Airwallex, a leading global payments and financial platform for modern businesses, today revealed how its global financial technology has improved McLaren Racing’s financial operations throughout the 2024 Formula 1 season.
Prior to this partnership, McLaren’s international payments run consisted of 30 payments made one at a time, which was inefficient and time-consuming. With Airwallex, McLaren can now push payments through a custom approval process and execute a batch payout using a template, taking a little under an hour per run. Over the course of a month, this new process is saving the McLaren Racing finance team half a day of work.
In addition, previously, the McLaren Racing finance team experienced slow transfer speeds – two to five business days – and high transfer fees when paying their international suppliers in US dollars (USD).
As a result of leveraging Airwallex’s end-to-end payment system, McLaren Racing today receives competitively priced foreign exchange (FX) rates and moves money through an extensive local payout network. McLaren Racing now has the flexibility to pay each global vendor in their local currency while reducing transfer times. For payout transactions, 90% arrive within hours, and 65% arrive instantly.
“At McLaren, speed and innovation are essential to our success both on and off the track,” said Laura Bowden, CFO at McLaren Racing. “Like all departments at McLaren, the finance team is mandated to look for marginal gains by consistently reviewing processes and using technology to optimise our business. By constantly monitoring spend and reporting back to the business, we can find new ways to free up funds to re-invest in our on-track efforts. We’re grateful to be partnering with Airwallex to supercharge our global financial operations.”
“We are used to seeing McLaren Racing perform on the track with speed and precision,” added Jon Stona, VP and Head of Global Marketing at Airwallex. “But less visible is that off the track, it takes team effort and world-class operational efficiency to put the drivers on the podium. We’re delighted to be playing a crucial part in this as we help streamline McLaren’s financial operations globally.”
Airwallex and McLaren Racing first announced their multi-year partnership in February to further enhance the team’s existing payments infrastructure, specifically across treasury management as well as cross-border pay-outs and settlement.
Airwallex’s global headquarters is in Singapore, so to mark the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday 22nd September, the business has also unveiled a first-of-its-kind 3D perception shift sculpture of McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris.
The artwork has been created in collaboration with renowned 3D perceptual shift artist, Michael Murphy, and symbolises the powerful role that perception plays in driving success, as part of a “Shifted Perspectives” campaign in the region.
Airwallex was founded in Melbourne in 2015, and today is headquartered in Singapore. The company has since grown to 23 locations globally and currently employs over 1,500 people. Last month Airwallex announced it had surpassed $100 billion in annual processing volume, up 73 percent year-on-year and achieved an annual run rate revenue of almost $500 million across all products, including payments, FX, payouts and issuing.