The £60m shift: How Carwow and Airwallex are redefining trust in online car sales

Sky News

6 days ago

When the team at London-headquartered Carwow launched their daily online auctions in 2021, they solved one half of the automotive marketplace equation: connecting private car sellers with trusted dealers through a digital platform.
But as transaction volumes grew, reaching over £3 billion in sales, a critical experience gap emerged in their otherwise streamlined process.
"Payments were happening off-platform," explains Will Morgan, Head of Product at Carwow. "Dealers were manually transferring funds. Sellers were waiting for confirmations. Clearing finance took time and paperwork. It created risk, frustration, and delay."
The solution would fundamentally reshape how high-value transactions work in digital marketplaces.
By embedding Airwallex's financial infrastructure directly into their platform as a white labelled solution, Carwow has - in just a matter of weeks - moved over £60 million in transactions into a unified digital flow. And in doing so, created a blueprint for how embedded finance can transform traditional industries.
The Hidden Engine of Digital Trust
For most dealers, payments represent the most vulnerable moment in any online transaction. In automotive sales, where average transaction values run into thousands of pounds, this anxiety intensifies dramatically.
Traditional banking processes amplify these concerns: manual transfers introduce delays, off-platform payments create tracking difficulties, and fragmented systems leave both buyers and sellers uncertain about transaction status.
"We asked ourselves: What's the best way for us to build trust on both sides of the transaction?" says Will Morgan, Head of Product at Carwow.
"What if the entire transaction--from auction to payment--could all happen inside the Carwow platform?"
The answer lay not in improving existing payment processes, but in reimagining them entirely. Rather than directing dealers to external banking systems, Carwow would create an integrated financial layer that operated seamlessly within their existing user experience.
Engineering Seamless Transactions
The technical implementation reveals why embedded finance represents more than incremental improvement. Through Airwallex's infrastructure, Carwow created digital wallets that operate entirely within their platform ecosystem. Dealers can fund purchases, trigger payments, handle negative equity settlements, and clear finance arrangements without ever leaving Carwow's interface.
For sellers, the transformation is equally significant. Instead of waiting for manual bank transfers and chasing payment confirmations, they receive immediate transaction updates through Carwow's existing communication channels. The entire process--from successful auction to payment completion--operates as a single, auditable digital flow.
"It's not just operationally smoother," Morgan notes. "It's structurally different. We've taken a fragmented process and turned it into a single, secure digital journey--from start to finish."
Proving the Business Case
The partnership's impact extends beyond user experience improvements. Since implementation earlier this year, over £60 million in transactions that previously occurred through external banking systems are now processed through Carwow's integrated platform, according to data provided by Carwow.
The company reports a 52% year-over-year increase in revenue from its auction platform, and a 103% increase in dealer offers placed, suggesting embedded payments unlock broader marketplace engagement.
"The early uptake has been substantial," Morgan observes. "We've moved high-value transactions that used to happen off-platform into our secure, instant system--at considerable scale."
This volume represents more than operational efficiency gains. By maintaining transaction oversight throughout the entire process, Carwow can provide enhanced transparency, faster dispute resolution, and improved regulatory compliance--benefits that compound as transaction volumes increase.
The Embedded Finance Advantage
Immy Spence, VP Commercial EMEA at Airwallex, positions the Carwow integration within a broader industry transformation. "We're seeing disruptor platforms increasingly embed financial services to create seamless, trusted, and verticalised experiences that were previously unimaginable with traditional banking methods."
The approach addresses fundamental marketplace challenges that extend well beyond automotive sales. Whether in travel booking, e-commerce transactions, or B2B wholesale operations, the principle remains consistent: embedded financial infrastructure can eliminate friction points that traditional banking systems cannot adequately address.
For Carwow's 20,000 monthly vehicle listings and network of trusted dealers, embedded payments provide competitive differentiation in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Dealers experience faster stock acquisition cycles, while sellers benefit from immediate payment confirmation--advantages that encourage continued platform usage.
Lessons for Digital Marketplaces
The Carwow-Airwallex partnership highlights broader principles applicable across digital marketplace operations. High-value transactions, in particular, benefit from embedded financial infrastructure, where trust concerns and payment delays create significant user friction.
Traditional payment processes--characterised by platform exits, manual procedures, and fragmented user experiences--represent structural obstacles to marketplace growth rather than mere operational inefficiencies. Embedded finance solutions address these challenges at the architectural level, creating integrated experiences that feel native to the platform rather than bolted-on additions.
"This isn't just a feature--it's a new foundation," Morgan explains. "We've redefined our car-changing experience. It's simpler, safer, and built for a modern, digital automotive marketplace."
The Infrastructure Behind Innovation
The technical capability that enables such integration represents a significant shift in financial services architecture. Airwallex's embedded finance solutions allow platforms to offer banking-grade security and regulatory compliance while maintaining complete control over user experience design and transaction flows.
This infrastructure approach enables platforms like Carwow to compete more effectively against traditional automotive sales channels by offering superior transaction experiences. Rather than directing users to external systems that dilute brand engagement, embedded solutions keep transactions within the platform ecosystem while meeting all regulatory requirements.
Scaling Digital Trust
As Carwow approaches £100 million in embedded transaction volume, according to company data, their experience suggests embedded finance may become standard infrastructure for high-value digital marketplaces.
The combination of enhanced user experience, improved operational efficiency, and stronger regulatory oversight creates compelling business advantages that traditional payment processing cannot match.
For marketplace operators across industries, the Carwow case study demonstrates how embedded financial infrastructure can transform operational challenges into competitive advantages.
By eliminating friction points that users previously accepted as inevitable, platforms can create differentiated experiences that drive increased engagement and transaction volumes.
The automotive sector's digital transformation continues accelerating, but Carwow's embedded finance implementation suggests the most significant innovations may occur not in vehicle technology, but in the financial infrastructure that makes digital car sales possible at scale.