Inside Airwallex’s AML probe: a peer review

This week’s 60/40 explores a few unavoidable truths about building a successful fintech business:

1. Every financial institution faces fraud risk.
2. Every fast-growing startup drops something while chasing scale.

The real question isn’t whether you’re 100% compliant with AML/CTF regulations, it’s whether you’re trying hard enough. When regulators call, what do you do next?

In Airwallex’s case, the issue isn’t just the AUSTRAC probe, it’s whether the response matches the scrutiny.

Our expert panel of fintech founders and investors – Walter de Oude (Chocolate Finance), Prashanth Ranganathan (Zinc and PayU), and Aleksey Mironenko (Leo Wealth) – conduct a candid, peer-level breakdown of the regulatory concerns in the Airwallex probe and lay out what they would do differently.

We then zoom out to Asia’s broader governance shift, from South Korea’s new AI Basic Act to the rise of a “humans-optional” economy reshaping entry-level hiring.

If you build, invest, or hire in Asia’s tech ecosystem, this is operator-level insight you won’t get from the headlines. Listen here: Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts.

Timestamps

00:00 – The Ferrari Problem: Is breaking rules just the cost of hypergrowth?

01:05 – What AUSTRAC’s probe into Airwallex really means

04:30 – Multijurisdiction fintech risk: when regulators talk to each other

12:00 – How founders should respond to regulatory heat

14:00 – Can Airwallex move forward with its IPO?

24:00 – South Korea’s AI Basic Act: Asia’s first real AI regulation