How Adaria Vending Services modernized cross-border payments with Airwallex

High-tech vending, high-tech finance

Adaria is on a mission to reinvent unattended retail. When the company launched, the industry was fragmented and still relied on outdated systems. Adaria saw an opportunity to modernize – introducing advanced telemetry, dynamic inventory control, and data-driven insights to elevate both operations and the customer experience.

What began as a regional vending operator has since grown into a cross-border business powering smart fridges, micro markets, and tech-enabled vending across offices, airports, hotels, and other high-traffic spaces throughout North America.

However, as the company expanded from Canada into the US, its financial complexity also increased. Managing payments, vendors, and operations across two countries – each with different currencies, banking systems, and compliance rules – quickly began to strain Adaria’s lean, tech-forward model.

To scale efficiently, Adaria partnered with Airwallex to consolidate global accounts, issue spend-controlled cards, and streamline cross-border payments.

The challenge: traditional financial solutions couldn’t keep up

Before Airwallex, Adaria relied on a patchwork of traditional banks and fintech tools, including Wise (formerly TransferWise) and Venn. Each offered partial solutions, but none could support the company’s cross-border operations on a single platform. Managing global accounts, payments, and spend required juggling too many tools and too much manual effort.

As Adaria expanded from Canada to the US, this complexity became a significant hindrance to its lean, tech-forward model. Requesting new cards meant manual bank approvals that could take days or even weeks to process. Currency conversions were unpredictable and expensive. Transferring funds between entities felt clunky, and finance teams had to reconcile payments across disconnected systems with little visibility into real-time spend or FX exposure.

All of this added up to a frustrating reality:

• Hidden fees and settlement delays slowed down their otherwise nimble business

• Finance had no centralized view of global cash flow, spend, or conversion costs

For a company built on automation and agility, the finance stack felt anything but modern.

Tommy Chan

Co-founder and Managing Director, Adaria

“Traditional banks made cross-border payments cumbersome and expensive. We had to manually reconcile accounts and manage exchange rate uncertainty, which slowed us down.”

The solution: one platform for cross-border control

To replace its fragmented financial stack, Adaria implemented Airwallex as its centralized finance platform. The team now uses Airwallex to manage cross-border transfers, issue corporate cards, and track global spend in real time, with no traditional bank approvals or manual reconciliations required. 

Card issuing has been fully embedded into Adaria’s procurement workflows. Each department receives a virtual card with pre-set controls, including spend caps and merchant category rules. Now, when launching a new site or business unit, the finance team can set up dedicated cards and enable operational spend in under a day.

Global transfers have also become part of day-to-day operations. The finance team uses Airwallex to pay US-based equipment vendors, settle software fees with international partners, and move funds between Canadian and US entities, all from a single dashboard.

With Airwallex, Adaria manages:

• Corporate card issuing and spend controls by team, site, and geography

• Multi-currency wallets across USD and CAD

• Global vendor payouts with competitive FX and fast settlement

• Real-time tracking and controls for every transaction

As Adaria expands into new markets, there’s no need to set up new local bank accounts with another provider. Airwallex scales with them.

The results: faster card issuance, leaner approvals, better cash flow

With Airwallex, Adaria has built a more agile finance function – one that can move as quickly as the rest of the business. Payments and operational spend are now fully streamlined across departments, vendors, and borders.

Cross-border vendor payments settle faster, which improves working capital and reduces FX costs when paying US-based suppliers and global software partners. Teams no longer wait days for card access – finance can issue virtual cards with spend controls in under 24 hours, accelerating procurement during new site launches or business unit expansions.

Finance also has full visibility into every transaction. Real-time reporting helps reduce surprise expenses, enforce department-level budgets, and eliminate the need for manual reconciliation across platforms.

Key outcomes include:

• Card issuing time cut from days to under 24 hours

• Faster, cheaper global transfers with lower FX exposure

• Tightly controlled departmental spend via pre-set limits and merchant rules

• Smarter budgeting through real-time visibility and centralized reporting

By consolidating payments, cards, and FX on one platform, Adaria has unlocked tighter cost control, cleaner approvals, and a leaner path to scale.

What’s next: growth, AI, and next-level retail

Adaria isn’t slowing down. The team is expanding its US footprint, piloting AI-powered inventory management tools, and launching sustainable, energy-efficient vending hardware. With Airwallex as a finance partner, Adaria is free to innovate and scale without getting bogged down by operational complexity.

Tommy Chan

Co-founder and Managing Director, Adaria

“As we enter new states or provinces, we don’t have to worry about setting up local bank accounts or managing disparate finance systems. Airwallex becomes our single pane of glass to manage funds, issue spend controls, and stay compliant.”

“Don’t wait for scale to start thinking about automation – build the foundation early. The more you grow, the harder it becomes to switch systems or unravel manual processes.”