Airwallex X Sports: Inside a FinTech's Journey Across Global Sport
Airwallex has built one of fintech's most ambitious sports portfolios, spanning Formula 1, the Premier League, MLB, Super Rugby and the AFL. This is the story behind its partnerships, the products powering them, and how sport has become a platform for global business growth.
From Formula 1 circuits to Premier League stadiums, Airwallex has built a sports portfolio that extends far beyond sponsorship. Each partnership showcases a different part of its financial platform, turning teams and venues into customers, product demonstrations and global growth engines.
Let's decode>>>
Sport has become one of the most competitive battlegrounds for fintech brands.
Stadiums, jerseys and global broadcasts offer visibility that few marketing channels can match, yet the companies making the biggest impact are doing far more than placing their logos on shirts. The most successful partnerships are increasingly built around technology, operations and long-term commercial collaboration, allowing financial platforms to become part of how clubs, leagues and venues function every day.
Airwallex has embraced that approach with remarkable consistency. Since entering sports in 2024, the Melbourne-founded fintech has assembled a portfolio that stretches across Formula 1, Premier League football, Major League Baseball, Super Rugby and the Australian Football League.
At first glance, the properties appear unrelated. A closer look reveals a deliberate expansion strategy, with each partnership supporting a different market, introducing a different product and strengthening Airwallex's position as a financial platform for global businesses.
Airwallex's sports portfolio at a glance
Rather than repeating the same sponsorship model across every property, Airwallex has adapted each partnership to suit the market it wants to grow in. Formula 1 helped introduce the brand to a global business audience. Arsenal became the centrepiece of a broader commercial relationship that now extends into Emirates Stadium. The Giants opened another door into North America, while the Blues and Essendon strengthened Airwallex's presence across Australasia.
Each partnership tells a different story, but together they form a broader playbook.
1) Building Global Credibility Through Formula 1
When Airwallex announced McLaren Racing as its first global sports partner in early 2024, the choice reflected much more than Formula 1's popularity. Few sports operate on a scale as international as F1. Teams move across more than twenty countries each season, coordinating suppliers, logistics providers, manufacturers and hospitality partners while managing payments in multiple currencies. That environment closely mirrors the challenges Airwallex solves for multinational businesses every day.
For Airwallex, Formula 1 offered something equally valuable: credibility. McLaren is one of motorsport's most recognised names, competing in front of hundreds of millions of viewers across Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East. Partnering with an organisation that relies on precision, speed and international coordination allowed Airwallex to place its own technology alongside those same qualities.
The partnership also extends well beyond branding. McLaren adopted Airwallex's financial infrastructure across several business functions, allowing the fintech to support cross-border payments, treasury management and global money movement while streamlining transactions with suppliers and commercial partners.
Products showcased through McLaren
- Cross-border Payments
- Foreign Exchange (FX)
- Treasury Management
- Global Payment Infrastructure
- Multi-currency Business Accounts
The branding naturally followed. Airwallex's logo appears on the Formula 1 car, driver overalls and team assets, giving the company year-round visibility as the championship travels around the world. Every race weekend reinforces the partnership while demonstrating the scale at which its financial platform is designed to operate.
But the partnership soon extended beyond the race weekend.
Airwallex's first major activation came through Shifted Perspectives, a campaign built around the idea that innovation begins by looking at challenges differently. Rather than focusing on product features, the campaign explored the shared mindset between Airwallex and McLaren, bringing together technology, engineering, creativity and business performance under a single narrative.
The campaign unfolded through several activations across the Formula 1 calendar. During the Singapore Grand Prix, Airwallex unveiled artist Michael Murphy's three-dimensional sculpture of Lando Norris as the centrepiece of a global customer event.
Ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, the company partnered with contemporary Indigenous artist Reko Rennie on a bespoke McLaren Artura installation while launching Business Acceleration Grants for Australian businesses. Together, these initiatives transformed the partnership from a branding exercise into a platform for customer engagement, thought leadership and brand storytelling.
From a global racing series, Airwallex shifted its focus to the world's biggest football stage.
2) Football became the centrepiece of Airwallex's expansion
Airwallex's partnership with Arsenal, announced in 2025, represented a different kind of opportunity. Formula 1 established international credibility, while football offered something broader: access to one of the world's largest commercial ecosystems. Arsenal attracts millions of supporters across Europe, Asia and North America, making the club an ideal platform as Airwallex continued expanding internationally.
The agreement positioned Airwallex as Arsenal's Official Finance Software Partner, immediately introducing more of the company's growing product suite. By this stage, Airwallex had evolved beyond cross-border payments into a wider business finance platform that included spend management, corporate cards and payment acceptance. Arsenal provided a high-profile environment to demonstrate those capabilities inside a complex global organisation.
Behind the scenes, Airwallex began supporting several aspects of Arsenal's financial operations, helping modernise how payments move across the club while improving visibility over business spending. The partnership also extended into Arsenal's men's and women's teams, digital platforms and commercial programmes, creating multiple touchpoints throughout the season rather than limiting exposure to matchdays alone.
Airwallex products integrated through Arsenal
- Spend Management
- Corporate Cards
- Business Accounts
- Cross-border Payments
- Payment Acceptance
One of the earliest activations came through Arsenal's pre-season tour of Singapore and Hong Kong, where Airwallex became the Presenting Partner. The tour aligned neatly with the company's strongest growth markets across Asia-Pacific, allowing the fintech to combine international football with regional business development. It was an opportunity to engage enterprise customers, strengthen relationships across Asia and demonstrate its platform in markets where cross-border commerce continues to accelerate.
Football also provided Airwallex with something Formula 1 could not: a year-round community. League matches, cup competitions, hospitality programmes and international tours create continuous opportunities to engage supporters and businesses alike, giving the partnership a much longer commercial runway than a traditional sponsorship announcement.
The next chapter unfolded beyond the pitch and inside Emirates Stadium itself.
When the Partnership Moved Into the Stadium
The most significant development in Airwallex's relationship with Arsenal arrived months after the original announcement. Instead of simply extending branding rights, the partnership expanded into Emirates Stadium's commercial operations, making Airwallex responsible for powering hospitality payments across one of football's busiest venues.
This marked an important shift in how the partnership functioned. Matchday hospitality, premium seating, executive boxes and supporter experiences generate significant revenue for modern football clubs. Every transaction has to be processed quickly and securely while providing a seamless experience for corporate clients and supporters. Airwallex's payment infrastructure became part of that process, integrating directly into the club's commercial operations rather than remaining a marketing asset on the sidelines.
The stadium expansion introduced new capabilities
- Hospitality payments
- Premium seating transactions
- Corporate box payments
- Payment Acceptance technology
- Supporter commerce
The move also demonstrated how Airwallex's sports partnerships continue to evolve over time. Initial announcements create awareness, product deployment builds operational value, and later expansions deepen the relationship by introducing new financial services. Instead of remaining static sponsorships, these partnerships become long-term commercial collaborations that grow alongside the company's platform.
That operational foundation soon gave Airwallex a platform for something very different: storytelling.
From Infrastructure to Storytelling
By early 2026, Airwallex had established itself inside Arsenal's commercial operations. The next challenge was different. The company had built the infrastructure, but it also needed to explain what it did to a much wider audience. That led to the launch of "Who Are Ya?", the biggest sports marketing campaign in Airwallex's history and one of the clearest examples of how the company approaches sponsorship activation.
Directed by Spike Lee and featuring Arsenal legends Thierry Henry, Martin Keown and Rachel Yankey alongside first-team players, the campaign took place inside a traditional North London pub. Football supporters debated transfers, club finances and player valuations, using familiar conversations to introduce broader themes around international business, money movement and financial decision-making. Instead of centring the campaign on software features, Airwallex built a story around football culture and let the brand sit naturally within it.
The campaign also reflected how much the Arsenal partnership had matured. Within a year, it had grown from a sponsorship announcement into a relationship spanning club operations, Emirates Stadium, international tours and brand storytelling. Each stage added another layer to the partnership while introducing a different part of Airwallex's business.
The Arsenal partnership now spans multiple touchpoints
Viewed together, Arsenal has become Airwallex's most comprehensive sports partnership to date, combining technology, operations, marketing and international expansion within a single property.
While football strengthened Airwallex's presence in Europe, another partnership signalled its ambitions across North America.
3) Baseball Opened the Door to the US Market
When Airwallex announced its partnership with the San Francisco Giants in 2026, the jersey patch attracted immediate attention. It was the company's first Major League Baseball sponsorship and placed the Airwallex logo on one of the league's most recognisable franchises.
The commercial significance extended well beyond the uniform.
The Giants sit at the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area, home to thousands of technology companies, venture-backed startups and multinational enterprises. For a fintech building its presence in the United States, partnering with a club located just across the bay from Silicon Valley created a valuable connection between sport and business.
Airwallex also became the Giants' Official Financial Software Partner, embedding several of its products into the club's operations. The partnership includes payment processing, billing, expense management and corporate cards, helping modernise financial workflows across the organisation. Giants Enterprises, which manages concerts, private events and hospitality experiences beyond baseball, also became part of the agreement, extending Airwallex's role into year-round commercial activities.
Products showcased through the Giants partnership
- Billing
- Corporate Cards
- Expense Management
- Payment Processing
- Business Finance Platform
The combination of software deployment and jersey branding follows the same pattern seen elsewhere in Airwallex's portfolio. Visibility creates awareness, while operational integration provides a practical demonstration of the platform's capabilities inside a large organisation.
The next phase of expansion brought the strategy back closer to home.
4) Growing Across Australasia
After establishing partnerships across Europe and North America, Airwallex strengthened its presence in the Asia-Pacific region through rugby in New Zealand and Australian Rules Football at home.
Although these partnerships operate in different sporting environments, they share a common objective: supporting regional growth while demonstrating Airwallex's expanding business finance platform.
Blues Rugby: Supporting International Sport
Super Rugby Pacific naturally aligns with Airwallex's cross-border strengths. Teams travel regularly between New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific, creating financial operations that involve international suppliers, travel providers and commercial partners.
As the Official Business Finance Partner of the Blues, Airwallex introduced products focused on international payments and business spending while reinforcing its presence in New Zealand's growing business community.
Products highlighted through the Blues partnership
- Cross-border Payments
- Spend Management
- Business Finance Platform
- Travel Expense Management
The partnership also illustrates how Airwallex selects sports properties that reflect the financial challenges its customers experience. International competition requires businesses to move money quickly across borders, manage expenses efficiently and simplify financial operations, all areas where Airwallex continues to expand its offering.
Essendon: Strengthening the Home Market
If McLaren established global credibility, Essendon represented something much closer to home.
Founded in Melbourne, Airwallex chose one of the AFL's biggest clubs as a Co-Major Partner and Official Financial Software Partner, combining front-of-guernsey branding with operational technology inside the club.
Essendon adopted Airwallex's spend and expense management platform alongside corporate cards, supplier payments and reimbursement workflows, giving the company another high-profile enterprise customer while showcasing products that have become increasingly important to its growth strategy.
Products deployed at Essendon
- Corporate Cards
- Spend Management
- Expense Management
- Supplier Payments
- Cross-border Payments
The partnership also extends into the club's business community, creating opportunities to connect with corporate partners, sponsors and enterprises that already operate within Essendon's commercial network.
For Airwallex, the agreement reinforces its position in Australia while demonstrating how its platform supports organisations ranging from global sports teams to businesses operating much closer to home.
Across every market, a consistent pattern begins to emerge.
Airwallex's sports strategy has expanded into one of the most diverse portfolios in fintech, spanning Formula 1, Premier League football, Major League Baseball, Super Rugby and the AFL. Across every market, the approach follows a familiar pattern: establish credibility through sport, integrate financial technology into day-to-day operations, then build the partnership further through campaigns, stadium infrastructure and commercial activations.
As Airwallex continues to grow beyond cross-border payments into a broader business finance platform, its sports partnerships are evolving in step. Each new deal introduces another product, another market and another opportunity to demonstrate how financial technology can support modern sports organisations both on and off the field.
Interested in how another fintech is using sport to accelerate its growth?
Read our deep dive into Revolut's Formula 1 strategy, where we explore how the fintech is using its partnership with the Audi F1 Team to showcase everything from retail banking and premium subscriptions to RevPoints and global payments.
Marcel
Marcel
Comments ()