AS Colour partners with Airwallex for a financial fit that makes global growth effortless

When AS Colour launched in New Zealand in 2005, it filled a clear gap in the market for premium blank apparel with exceptional quality, fit and durability.

The company’s t-shirts, hoodies and tote bags quickly became the go-to for customers who needed top-quality blanks to launch apparel brands, create event merchandise, outfit teams and make their own custom clothing.

AS Colour has experienced non-stop growth since then. It expanded to Australia and, over the next two decades, gained footholds in highly competitive US, UK and EU markets. That’s no mean feat, according to Chief Financial Officer Cameron Irons, especially considering the US is “the land of t-shirts”.

We spoke with Cam and colleague Joe Sharplin, Head of eCommerce, about how AS Colour has navigated global expansion and enhanced its cross-border finance operations with Airwallex, keeping the business aligned and freeing local teams to focus on growth.

Hitting roadblocks with traditional banks

Cam says being part of a Kiwi company that’s scaled so successfully has been a standout experience. Making decisions on a global level from its southern hemisphere base is something he genuinely values.

However, overseeing finances across four rapidly growing regions while balancing a mix of B2B and DTC channels comes with its fair share of challenges. As those challenges mounted across borders, the cracks in legacy banking processes inevitably started to show.

The frustration of making banking arrangements for its operations in the Netherlands was the trigger to try something new. Cam says Airwallex “saved the day” after he’d spent about three months struggling to set up a critical new EU-based account. 

“We needed the account to turn on our website and start selling online, and we ran into a brick wall in settling funds,” Cam explains.

“Not only was there a long lead time, but we were also dealing with paper-based processes and all the red tape. The list goes on!” Cam says.

Putting out a call for help through business networks led to an introduction to Airwallex. It didn’t take long to scope the solution and understand how much simpler an Airwallex Global Account would be for the finance team. 

“The onboarding process was super-quick. We had the KYC done within a couple of days,” Cam says.

After getting the go-ahead, AS Colour was up and running with Airwallex in about a week, from start to finish. “The Airwallex customer team have been great from the outset. Whenever a problem crops up, they’re available to solve it straight away,” Cam adds.

Eliminating bottlenecks with real-time reconciliation

The structure that an Airwallex global account provided on a transactional level was just the beginning. “From there, we’ve moved to corporate cards and employee cards, which have been game-changers,” Cam adds.

“Our sales reps need cards when they’re on the road, and we often need to change their limits, which can now be done in minutes. You can spin up an employee card within seconds, and the process has been seamless,” he says.

As Head of eCommerce, Joe is on the same page. He agrees that moving to a digital expense management solution provides the business with up-to-the-minute spend transparency and conveniently automates what used to be manual input.

“The expense claim process before using Airwallex was very clunky and involved doing department expenses in bulk on a month-by-month basis,” he says. 

“It was time-consuming and something I dreaded. With Airwallex, I can get on top of expenses instantly without having to deal with monthly bottlenecks, and it’s a much nicer and more fluid experience.”

“I’m now using an Airwallex card for all my eCommerce and department expenses. It’s great for in-person payments. But most of my payments are online, and it’s also on my phone, loaded in Apple Pay. It provides a super seamless experience.

“Being able to jump into the dashboard on the fly, update a payment or an expense and send it off to finance has made expense management much simpler,” Joe says.

Smart spending for finance and in-field teams

According to Cam, the team’s strongest positive feedback about the partnership has come from the shift away from traditional cards to Airwallex.

“Things like getting notifications when they’ve reached spend limits and being alerted to add receipts have made our employees’ lives easier,” he says.

Joe reports that the sales reps can now reconcile their transactions live. “At month end it used to take 4 to 6 hours to reconcile a standard corporate card statement. That entire time is now being saved,” he says.

And for the finance team, the reconciliations have been so much smoother. They spend less time chasing receipts now because sales reps get prompted to upload them immediately, and it’s getting done every single time.

A single platform for managing finances in every region

As businesses with global ambitions quickly discover, expanding into new markets and managing multiple subsidiaries can lead to huge financial headaches. 

“For us, the real challenge of growing a global business is staying ahead of the curve in a managed way without unnecessarily increasing budget and headcount,” Cam emphasises. “Finding efficiencies with the right tech is important, and Airwallex was a great solution that allows us to do that.”

Cam particularly appreciates Airwallex’s role in streamlining AS Colour’s global entity management. With Airwallex, the business has been able to switch from using random, unrelated accounts to a single platform that easily services the entire group in one place. 

“We can now see all our companies in one place, transact between them, and have a centralised view of cash balances and money movement across all entities,” he says.

By consolidating global accounts, money movement and entity management into a single platform, Airwallex has given AS Colour a clearer, more efficient way to run its international operations. It’s an all-in-one financial foundation that reduces complexity and empowers the team to expand with confidence.

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is factual information only and is not intended to imply any recommendation or opinion about a financial product.