Guest Article

You've been selling payments to German businesses since 2012. What has changed most since then, and what hasn't changed at all?

The biggest shift I have seen firsthand is share of wallet - both online and at the point of sale. When I started in 2012, we would head out from our Rocket Internet office on Saarbrücker Straße in Prenzlauer Berg and try to convince restaurants, smaller shops and even taxi drivers, to accept cards. Since then, card share has grown steadily, and today that conversation looks very different.

Online, it was the wallets that won through the 2000s. PayPal kept gaining share, and later, with Apple Pay, the device became more important than the payment method itself. So where the money flows keeps evolving.

What hasn't changed is that payments remain complex. Whichever merchant you talk to, you never get the feeling it's fully solved. They are still looking to improve conversion, expand internationally and become more cost-efficient. The tools got better, the problems are still the same.

What's the most important thing for every global business to know when trying to establish product-market fit with German businesses?

German businesses need to look very carefully at what you can transfer from your global playbook and what you can't. Some principles travel well but others don't travel at all. That is where a lot of international companies can go wrong.

That's why the focus on your ICP and on real localization is so important. By this I mean much more than simply translating your website, because behaviour in Germany simply works differently. Payment habits are a great example of this because we have a local scheme, the Girocard, which still takes a big share of wallet at the point of sale, meanwhile online, paying by invoice is a huge topic. That also means you need accounting integrations like DATEV, because that is where a large part of the German market conducts its day-to-day operations.

Then there is trust. A German IBAN matters much more than international businesses would expect. Language matters too, a lot of things really have to be in German. Finally, data protection is its own topic that you have to take seriously from day one.

None of this is glamorous, but it has to be part of finding product-market fit, not something you fix later.

Around 80% of German SMEs stay with their house bank, even when fintechs are faster and cheaper. Why are those relationships so sticky? Is it trust, credit lines, the Steuerberater or just habit?

From my experience, it takes much more to change a behavior than to get someone to adopt a new one. And when it comes to finance, the willingness to switch is very low in Germany. The pressure has to be really high before someone actually moves.

A big part of it is timing. These relationships get established very early, and from then on they simply work because trust has already been proven and established. The KfW SME panel shows how deep that goes: 93% of German SMEs have a house bank, the relationship has lasted around 20 years on average, and roughly 80% of their credit volume sits there. On top of that, the banks are deeply integrated, with credit lines and with things like tax filing. And to be clear, we don't want to change that.

For us at Airwallex, the question is not how to replace the house bank. We act as a global infrastructure layer that’s been built for long-term business optimisation. A customer might start with an international transfer or one of our payment solutions. The more transaction use cases they see working, the more trust they build, and from there they use more and more of the product.

You've built the German business for several international companies. Is there a playbook that works for any market? If you had to launch in a new country tomorrow, what would your first 90 days look like?

I don't think there is one playbook that works for every market, the details, like localization, always have to be adapted. But there are core principles that hold up everywhere. For the first 90 days, I'd stick to three of them.

The first is to go broad before you go deep. In the beginning, you need to cover everything, from regulatory topics to commercial, hiring and marketing. Only once you have the full picture does it make sense to go deep on individual areas.

The second is deliver the proof before bringing in the people. I would start executing as quickly as possible and generate the first commercial wins before I hire more. That also shows the rest of the company that the product market fit really works before investing further.

The third is that clearly-defined execution beats perfection. If you want to move fast and have impact, it’s important to take a ‘get-things-done’ mentality, the early days are definitely not about perfection. What matters is that it's done, you’ve got the learnings and that's what keeps you moving forwards towards your bigger targets.

Airwallex started in Australia and is now headquartered in Singapore and San Francisco. What can German fintechs learn from the APAC mindset, and the other way round?

Let me start with a very practical advantage. I worked for US companies before, PayPal incl. Braintree, with stakeholders in San Francisco and Chicago, and quite often you simply had to wait until they woke up. With Singapore it's the other way round. They are up before you, so when I sit down in Berlin, half of the things have already moved. Same with Australia back at Afterpay. So the first thing I learned from working closely with APAC teams is that time zones can work in your favor.

But beyond that, from what I see everyday at Airwallex, what stands out for me is speed and ownership. Decisions get made quickly, people are expected to take responsibility and keep moving, and there is a real belief that you can solve hard problems even when there is no fixed or perfect playbook. That is something German fintechs can really learn from, start earlier, accept that it won't be perfect on day one, and learn from the market instead of from the plan.

But it’s not a one-way learning process, a lot of global players can learn from Germany too. This market rewards thoroughness and trust, particularly data protection, a German IBAN, a DATEV integration. Those are not details, they decide whether a business takes you seriously. This is where speed alone doesn't get you all the way to the finish line as . Germans value long-term relationships rather than quick wins, which I find very valuable and it’s a great mindset for young people who want to build a long-term career.

After 15 years experiencing global companies growing in Germany from both sides, the sweet spot is to combine the best of both approaches by moving fast, but based on a local foundation that holds.

Where will AI have the biggest impact in a company’s finance function, and what will it change about how German finance teams work day to day?

I think the biggest impact will be on the routine, rule-based work that still takes up most of a finance team's time: collecting and matching receipts, checking expenses against policy, approving standard payments, watching balances. Our CEO Jack Zhang describes it as AI changing the unit of work. It moves from the individual transaction to the outcome. So instead of "pay this supplier", a finance team can say "keep the next three months of European supplier payments funded", and the agent works out the steps in between.

For German finance teams, that means day to day work becomes continuous instead of periodic. Fewer people checking the balance every morning or clicking through the same approvals, and more time spent on setting goals, rules and limits, and on the exceptions where judgement is needed.

That last part matters. Agents need context, permissions and solid infrastructure underneath. People still set the boundaries, and the agent hands back when it needs a human. I think that fits Germany well, because control and traceability matter a lot here.

Three quick ones

Which tech company other than Airwallex impresses you most right now?
Anthropic

Cash, card or Wero: how did you pay for your last coffee?
Apple Pay

One book or podcast you'd recommend to everyone in the industry?
I met Steven Bartlett at Bits & Pretzels and can always recommend his podcast: The Diary Of A CEO