Fund your issuing balance
Funds for spending money using your Airwallex business and individual cards are drawn from your Airwallex Wallet. You can add funds into your Airwallex Wallet via bank transfers to Global Accounts, direct debits from Linked Accounts, Payments, transfers from other Airwallex accounts, and other adjustments.
You can use your Airwallex-issued cards as multi-currency cards to transact in any currency supported by Visa, as long as you have sufficient balance in your Airwallex Wallet to cover the transaction.
Airwallex also supports direct billing where funds are directly debited from your Airwallex Wallet in the transaction currency without any further hidden charges or conversion fees. See supported regions and currencies.
Note that your Airwallex account has a default home currency, which is the local currency in the country where your business is located. For example, AUD for Australia, GBP for the United Kingdom. However, you can configure any direct billing currency as your home currency.
Purchases
When you make a purchase on an Airwallex-issued card, the funds flow from your Airwallex Wallet will depend on the transaction currency and whether automatic conversions is enabled or not.
- When a transaction is initiated on your card, Airwallex first checks if direct billing is supported for your transaction currency. If direct billing is supported and funds are available in your transaction currency then Airwallex proceeds with the deduction of the purchase amount from your transaction currency Wallet. For example, for a GBP transaction, your GBP Wallet will be debited.
- If direct billing is not supported, i.e., for a transaction in all other currencies, Airwallex checks if your home currency's balance can cover the entire purchase amount. If it can, Airwallex deducts the amount from your home currency Wallet at the prevailing FX rate. For example, for an AED transaction, your AUD Wallet will be debited for an equivalent amount based on Visa's daily rate. Only funds available in one currency are used.
Refunds
If a merchant refunds your card purchase where the transaction currency is a direct billing currency, the refund will be credited in the transaction currency. In all other scenarios, the refund will be automatically converted back to your home currency if automatic conversion was enforced.
Contact your Airwallex Account Manager if you want to configure your account to always receive refunds in the currency you were billed in.