Float, which offers a business finance platform for Canadian companies, has chosen Airwallex to power its new bill pay product.
The new product enables fast and cost-efficient bill payments for both domestic and overseas transactions and includes bank transfers, EFT, wire and ACH, the companies said in a Thursday (July 25) press release.
“By leveraging Airwallex’s global financial infrastructure, we can deliver a seamless and affordable bill payment experience to our customers — enabling them to scale, unlock their potential and grow our economy,” Rob Khazzam, CEO and co-founder of Float, said in the release.
The addition of Airwallex-powered bill pay expands Float’s payment solutions for Canadian businesses, which also include smart corporate cards, intelligent spend management software and reimbursements, according to the release.
The new offering will benefit the nearly 100,000 Canadian small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that regularly conduct business outside the country, the release said.
With the new bill pay solution, they can eliminate manual accounts payable (AP) processes, increase visibilityand control over invoices, and minimize foreign exchange (FX) fees, per the release.
“Canadian consumers, SMBs, enterprises and the economy at large stand to benefit from more integrated financial services,” Ravi Adusumilli, executive general manager, Americas at Airwallex, said in the release. “We’re proud to partner with a cutting-edge partner in Float to empower businesses to operate more easily and efficiently both inside and outside of Canada.”
Airwallex has announced several new partnerships in recent months.
In June, the company integrated with financial software provider QuickBooks. This integration enables Airwallex customers to speed up the reconciliation process by connecting with QuickBooks’ accounting software and syncing their Airwallex transactions across supported currencies into their QuickBooks Online account.
In April, Airwallex and BILL partnered to help BILL customers make faster international payments. This collaboration added the local transfer capabilities of Airwallex’s global payments and financial platform to BILL’s financial operations platform for SMBs.
Airwallex also launched a partnership with global communications platform Bird in April, saying this collaboration will power Bird’s international payments operations across the company’s customers’ preferred channels, including WhatsApp, Email, SMS, Voice, WeChat, Messenger and Instagram.
Corporate delinquencies are reportedly at the highest rate they’ve reached in eight years.
The delinquency rate for loans from U.S. banks to both U.S. and foreign companies rose to 1.3% at the end of 2024, a figure that was the highest since the first quarter of 2017 but well below the 5% seen during the 2008 financial crisis, the Financial Times (FT) reported Monday (Feb. 17), citing data from BankRegData.
The total amount of bank debt on which U.S. business borrowers were at least one month late reached $28 billion, up $2.2 billion from three months earlier and up $5.4 billion from a year earlier, according to the report.
The report attributed the rise to interest rates that remain high, surprising some observers who expected them to fall this year. A pickup in inflation in January and concerns about the impact of President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs have delayed further interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, the report said.
Corporate bank loans tend to be variable rate, so the expected decline in interest rates would have given some relief to borrowers, the report said.
The data from BankRegData does not include loans from direct lenders and private credit funds, per the report.
It was reported in January that the growth in commercial bank loans was at the slowest it’s been since the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Commercial bank loans grew by around 2.7% in 2024, which was only somewhat faster than the 2.3% rise seen in 2023.
A number of bankers said they hoped to see loan growth later this year, citing optimism among clients and other indicators.
Bank of America said during a January earnings call that commercial loans were up 5% year over year in the fourth quarter and that loan and deposit growth in the current year should outpace last year’s.
J.P. Morgan Chase said during a January earnings call that there has been improvement in business sentiment and that balance sheets at small businesses are healthy.
Citi CEO Jane Fraser said during a January earnings call that in the United States, “growth is not only being driven by the higher-end consumer but also by a strong and innovative corporate sector.”