Chronos Agency cuts cross-border banking fees by nearly 90% with Airwallex

A connected financial platform for a global, remote-first agency

In 2017, at the height of the eCommerce boom, university friends Joshua Chin and Louis Teo saw an opportunity to help brands retain more customers. That idea became Chronos Agency, an email marketing provider that has since evolved to become a full-suite retention marketing agency, serving more than 100 global clients from Singapore.

For Chronos, its value to clients isn’t in a series of disconnected tactics – it’s in turning years of data into holistic lifecycle strategies. The same belief in connection led Joshua and Louis to bring eCom North, a global conference series designed to bring eCommerce founders together, to Asia. 

But being global and remote-first put pressure on Chronos’ own finance function. With data trapped across disconnected platforms, every transaction cost the agency time and money it couldn’t afford to lose. 

Airwallex brought these core financial flows together on one platform. Client payments now settle 57% faster than they did through traditional banking rails. Monthly cross-border banking and FX fees are down by almost 90%, and offshore salary payments are already landing 15% faster in testing. But getting here took some work. 

The challenge

Pay-ins and payouts came with fees and delays 

As a global agency, Chronos bills clients across the US, Canada, Australia, and beyond. To get paid, the team had to generate invoices in Xero for each client, then send a separate email with wire instructions or a payment link. This gave clients another step to work through after getting billed. 

Paying for online subscriptions and tools meant shifting funds from one bank or digital wallet to another before a payment could even go out. There was no way to batch transfers to the same vendor or link a paid bill back to the invoice issued, creating more work for the finance team. 

Every hop between payment platforms also picked up its own fee, with costs totalling as much as 10% of the agency’s total monthly operating expenses at one point. 

Whether money was coming in from a client or going out to a vendor, transfers often took over a week to settle. There was no way to tell when a payment would go through, or whether it had even landed without someone checking manually. 

Without a clear view of pay-ins and payouts, the finance team could not easily predict when payments would arrive or how much cash was available to cover operating costs.

Cash flow planning was time-consuming and reactive 

The same fragmentation that slowed payment collections and vendor payouts also added friction to Chronos’ day-to-day spend. Whether it was a subscription payment or ad hoc business expense, employees had to submit receipts each time they used their corporate cards. The finance team then had to manually match transactions to the corresponding bank statement before the reimbursement could be approved and processed.  

With expense receipts, vendor bills, and client payments sitting in different systems, reconciling them was a manual, time-consuming process that left cash flow planning more reactive than forward-looking. 

Joshua Chin

Co-founder and CEO of Chronos Agency

"In the early days, we really just took on any solution that would allow us to pay our vendors, pay our employees, and receive payments. It was really difficult to have a complete overview of what's going on without spending a lot of time and effort building dashboards and spreadsheets that could connect the dots. Even then, data was lagging."

The solution

Chronos was built on the belief that brands grow faster when they are connected, not operating in isolation. Its finances told a different story: disconnected tools, costly hand-offs, and no clear view of cash. Rather than add another point solution, Chronos opened an Airwallex Business Account to bring its core payment workflows onto one platform.

Collect payments and pay vendors in one place

An Airwallex Business Account allows Chronos to collect client payments through secure, one-time Payment Links embedded in its Xero invoices. Clients can pay directly from the invoice, and the funds land in the same Airwallex account Chronos uses to pay vendors. The team no longer has to move money between platforms before using those funds. 

For vendor payments, Chronos imports invoices directly from Xero into Airwallex. The finance team approves the bills, batches payments to the same vendor, and syncs all the payment data back to Xero. Instead of shifting funds between platforms, every outgoing payment now runs through the same rails Chronos uses to get paid – without incurring fees at every hop.

Get real-time visibility over every dollar moving in and out

With client payments and vendor payouts now in one place, the manual work behind month-end closing began to fall away. Bank feeds and paid invoices sync automatically into Xero, and every batched payment flows straight back into the books the moment it's made. 

Work that used to mean manually matching a receipt to a bank line now happens as a byproduct of paying the bill, leaving the finance team free to read its cash position as it stands today, rather than reconstructing it weeks later.

Joshua Chin

Co-founder and CEO of Chronos Agency

"With Airwallex, everything is consolidated into one bucket. The money comes in, the money goes out, and we use the same account to pay for everything. We finally have the kind of relationship with a finance partner that we never really had before – one where we know exactly what we're being charged and why."

The result

The shift to Airwallex is already showing up in Chronos' numbers. With the time saved, the finance team can now plan ahead instead of playing catch-up. Client payments now settle in 3–4 days, down from over a week. 

• Client payments now settle almost 60% faster than they did through traditional banking rails.

• Monthly cross-border transfer fees have fallen from around US$8,000 to US$1,000 – a reduction of close to 90%. 

• In early testing, salary payments to employees in the Philippines were landing 15% faster with Airwallex – a signal of what full payroll migration could unlock across its global team.

Looking ahead, Chronos is working to bring the rest of its financial operations onto Airwallex, starting with issuing employee cards to its global workforce and consolidating day-to-day spend onto the same platform it uses to collect client payments and pay vendors. 

As the agency sets its sights on deepening its global presence, it’s set to use Airwallex to send salary payments to staff across Malaysia, the Philippines, the US, and more. By running overseas payroll from the same multi-currency account, Chronos can cut the unnecessary conversions and the fees that usually come with cross-border payments.

Chronos built its business turning scattered client data into one shared strategy for eCommerce brands. With Airwallex, it’s now doing the same with its own finances – trading a stack of disconnected tools for one connected platform.

This publication does not constitute legal, tax, or professional advice from Airwallex, nor does it substitute seeking such advice, and makes no express or implied representations / warranties / guarantees regarding content accuracy, completeness, or currency. If you would like to request an update, feel free to contact us at [[email protected]]. Airwallex (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (201626561Z) is licensed as a Major Payment Institution and regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.