US scrutiny of Airwallex's China ties

analysisIn December 2025 Keith Rabois, a managing director of Khosla Ventures and a board director of the competing fintech Ramp, wrote on X that Airwallex was sending its US customers' data to China, claiming that its employee base in China and partial ownership by Tencent and HongShan (formerly Sequoia China) legally required it to hand US customer data to the Chinese government on request. This is an allegation by a director of a competitor, as reported by a business magazine; no authority has made such a finding in the retained records. Zhang denied the allegation, said Airwallex's Chinese engineers had no access to foreign user data and accused Rabois of circulating inaccurate claims for the benefit of one of his portfolio companies; in a June 2026 blog post he called the allegations "patently false" and wrote that US customer data is stored in the United States and cannot be accessed by staff based in China and Hong Kong. On 8 December 2025 an Australian financial newspaper reported that an Airwallex executive had raised concerns that the company's employees in China were requesting greater access to customer data, according to another newspaper's account of that report; the original article is not among the retained records. ^{1 2}

analysisIn December 2025 Senator Tom Cotton wrote to the US Attorney General asking the Department of Justice to open a full investigation into whether Airwallex data was being accessed by the Chinese Communist Party; the retained records do not show whether any investigation was opened. On 17 June 2026 he wrote to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent asking CFIUS to open a national security review of Chinese investment in Airwallex and, if it confirmed the risk, to seek divestment of the Chinese stakes or at least impose conditions ending China-based access to American data. His letter says Airwallex operates as a US money transmitter processing sensitive data for American companies, that about 40 per cent of its employees work in China and that it moved more than 100 employees out of China; these are the senator's assertions, and no CFIUS decision is in the retained records. Lucy Liu declined to address the letter directly and referred to an earlier company statement; Zhang has called the allegations false and said Tencent holds a passive stake of less than 10 per cent without a board seat. Airwallex invited third-party firms to audit its privacy and data controls and published a security assessment by Coalfire. ^{3 4 5 1}

analysisA US news site reported on 2 June 2026 that Michael Lucci, chief executive of the national security group State Armor, had written to congressional leaders including Senators Mike Crapo and Ron Wyden and Representatives French Hill and Maxine Waters, urging a formal investigation of Airwallex's reported ownership, operational and workforce ties to China, including a review by CFIUS, and citing Tencent's investment and its inclusion in January 2025 on the Department of Defense list of Chinese military companies. The article reports no congressional action. An Airwallex spokesman told a British financial newspaper that employee realignment became part of its growth plan when US Executive Order 14117 set new requirements on cross-border data flows in 2024, and that the company still has a significant presence in Shanghai and Hong Kong. ³

analysisCotton's letter attributes a combined stake of more than 20 per cent to Tencent and HongShan; Zhang has said that Tencent holds a passive stake of less than 10 per cent and does not have a board seat, as a business magazine reports from the company's published response. Neither figure comes from a share register. A British financial newspaper reported in May 2026, according to a business magazine's summary, that Airwallex had started moving some China-based staff who did not work with Chinese customers out of the country, with a spokesperson saying the moves were due to data security; the newspaper's report itself is not among the retained records. Square Peg co-founder Paul Bassat, a large investor in Airwallex, told a business magazine he thinks Zhang and his co-founders are treated unfairly because they are ethnically Chinese; that is an investor's opinion. ^{1 2 3}