Google Cloud Platform Case Studies Airwallex: Transforming Global Payments with Google Cloud

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	Airwallex: Transforming Global Payments with Google Cloud Google Cloud Platform

Airwallex: Transforming Global Payments with Google Cloud

Google Cloud Platform

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Machine Learning Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries	Cement Construction & Infrastructure
Applicable Functions	Maintenance Quality Assurance
Use Cases	Construction Management Time Sensitive Networking
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services Data Science Services
Challenge	Airwallex, a global payments platform, was facing challenges in expanding into new markets and complying with stringent regulations such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). The company's existing cloud service was unable to support its growth plans and ensure compliance with these regulations. As a startup, Airwallex also needed to focus on the application layer of its offerings rather than dedicating time and resources to infrastructure. Furthermore, the company required high security, reliability, low latency, and manageable costs to build and retain trust with its customers. The company also needed to ensure low latency to provide data consistency and offer low rates to customers without applying a high spread to account for rate fluctuations due to the fast-moving nature of financial markets. Read More
About Customer	Airwallex is a global payments platform founded in Melbourne with engineering hubs in Amsterdam, Melbourne, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Sydney. The company's mission is to empower businesses of all sizes to grow without borders, and by doing so, contribute to the global economy. Airwallex has built a financial infrastructure and platform to help businesses manage online payments, treasury, and payout globally, without the constraints of the traditional financial system. Since its establishment in 2015, Airwallex has secured over US$800 million and operates with a team of almost 1,000 employees across 20 locations globally. The company offers products that enable businesses to open domestic and international accounts, create multi-currency payment cards, synchronize transactions with Xero online accounting software, undertake low-cost and high-speed international payments, and create simple links for instant payment. Read More
Solution	Airwallex partnered with Google Cloud to leverage its established security infrastructure that covered all encryption usage concerns. This partnership also made it easy for Airwallex to provide documentation during audits to support claims of its systems being built on top of secure and trustworthy technologies. Google Cloud’s network and global portfolio of data centers provided Airwallex with low latency, which was crucial for ensuring database throughput while its distributed transactions stayed consistent. Airwallex expanded its use of Google Cloud to more than 50% of the provider’s products and services, including Google Kubernetes Engine, which enabled the company to run its microservices architecture and its applications reliably and flexibly. Google Kubernetes Engine also allowed Airwallex to seamlessly support demand spikes on its platform. Additionally, Airwallex used BigQuery to create and run a data warehouse and data lake, enabling the analysis of large volumes of data without requiring the business to invest in data infrastructure and internal expertise. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Machine Learning

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Cement

Construction & Infrastructure

Applicable Functions

Maintenance

Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Construction Management

Time Sensitive Networking

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

Data Science Services

Challenge

Airwallex, a global payments platform, was facing challenges in expanding into new markets and complying with stringent regulations such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). The company's existing cloud service was unable to support its growth plans and ensure compliance with these regulations. As a startup, Airwallex also needed to focus on the application layer of its offerings rather than dedicating time and resources to infrastructure. Furthermore, the company required high security, reliability, low latency, and manageable costs to build and retain trust with its customers. The company also needed to ensure low latency to provide data consistency and offer low rates to customers without applying a high spread to account for rate fluctuations due to the fast-moving nature of financial markets.

About Customer

Airwallex is a global payments platform founded in Melbourne with engineering hubs in Amsterdam, Melbourne, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Sydney. The company's mission is to empower businesses of all sizes to grow without borders, and by doing so, contribute to the global economy. Airwallex has built a financial infrastructure and platform to help businesses manage online payments, treasury, and payout globally, without the constraints of the traditional financial system. Since its establishment in 2015, Airwallex has secured over US$800 million and operates with a team of almost 1,000 employees across 20 locations globally. The company offers products that enable businesses to open domestic and international accounts, create multi-currency payment cards, synchronize transactions with Xero online accounting software, undertake low-cost and high-speed international payments, and create simple links for instant payment.

Solution

Airwallex partnered with Google Cloud to leverage its established security infrastructure that covered all encryption usage concerns. This partnership also made it easy for Airwallex to provide documentation during audits to support claims of its systems being built on top of secure and trustworthy technologies. Google Cloud’s network and global portfolio of data centers provided Airwallex with low latency, which was crucial for ensuring database throughput while its distributed transactions stayed consistent. Airwallex expanded its use of Google Cloud to more than 50% of the provider’s products and services, including Google Kubernetes Engine, which enabled the company to run its microservices architecture and its applications reliably and flexibly. Google Kubernetes Engine also allowed Airwallex to seamlessly support demand spikes on its platform. Additionally, Airwallex used BigQuery to create and run a data warehouse and data lake, enabling the analysis of large volumes of data without requiring the business to invest in data infrastructure and internal expertise.

Impact #1	The partnership with Google Cloud has enabled Airwallex to meet its business requirements and support its vision of being a global economic infrastructure. The use of Google Cloud’s network and global portfolio of data centers has resulted in lower latency, which is crucial for ensuring database throughput while its distributed transactions stay consistent. The use of Google Kubernetes Engine has allowed Airwallex to run its microservices architecture and its applications reliably and flexibly. It has also enabled the company to seamlessly support demand spikes on its platform. The use of BigQuery has enabled Airwallex to analyze large volumes of data without requiring the business to invest in data infrastructure and internal expertise. Furthermore, Airwallex is now working with Google Cloud Professional Services to establish a site reliability engineering (SRE) team to improve the reliability of its services across cloud infrastructure, application architecture, and application operations.

Impact #1

The partnership with Google Cloud has enabled Airwallex to meet its business requirements and support its vision of being a global economic infrastructure. The use of Google Cloud’s network and global portfolio of data centers has resulted in lower latency, which is crucial for ensuring database throughput while its distributed transactions stay consistent. The use of Google Kubernetes Engine has allowed Airwallex to run its microservices architecture and its applications reliably and flexibly. It has also enabled the company to seamlessly support demand spikes on its platform. The use of BigQuery has enabled Airwallex to analyze large volumes of data without requiring the business to invest in data infrastructure and internal expertise. Furthermore, Airwallex is now working with Google Cloud Professional Services to establish a site reliability engineering (SRE) team to improve the reliability of its services across cloud infrastructure, application architecture, and application operations.

Benefit #1	Recorded availability over 99.95%
Benefit #2	Ensured latency is well below 200 milliseconds
Benefit #3	Supported an increase of about 30x in transactions per second (tps) to 50,000 tps

Benefit #1

Recorded availability over 99.95%

Benefit #2

Ensured latency is well below 200 milliseconds

Benefit #3

Supported an increase of about 30x in transactions per second (tps) to 50,000 tps

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Overview

Airwallex: Transforming Global Payments with Google Cloud

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit