The 2025 New Zealand NBR Wealth List was released today.
On the latest list of rich New Zealanders, the name of a Chinese woman is particularly eye-catching.
Lucy Liu became the richest woman in New Zealand, ranking 30th on the ranking list.
Its estimated net worth is 700 million.
Because you are a New Zealand citizen, you will be listed on the NBR Rich List.
Lucy Liu came to New Zealand at the primary school stage. She is the co-founder of Airwallex, a fintech company.
The company was valued at more than $6.2 billion in its funding last month.
Lucy Liu (Liu Yueting) was born in northern China and her family lived in Shanghai for most of her childhood.
When he was 12 years old, his family moved to Auckland, New Zealand.
In 2015, during a professional window, Lucy Liu returned to Melbourne. After traveling to Europe and Japan, she frequented the Tukk & Co cafe near her home and chatted with shopkeeper friends Jack Zhang and Max Li.
The two have engineering and banking backgrounds. They often purchase coffee cups and other materials from China, but are troubled by the cumbersome international remittance procedures and high bank fees.
A coffee shop opened by Jack, when purchasing coffee ingredients from overseas, the other party only accepted US dollars to pay, so he could only exchange Australian dollars for US dollars. However, the exchange process actually caused the coffee shop to lose US$600, which is equivalent to a net profit of several days.
After a conversation, several people had a bold idea: "Why not build a global payment platform yourself?"
In this way, Airwallex was born, and the founding team also included Dai Xijing, a friend who is proficient in financing. Several people had clear division of labor and quickly put their ideas into practice.
In 2017, Forbes selected her into Asia for 30 young financial entrepreneurs under the age of 30.
In 2021, the company's valuation has reached US$3.4 billion.
Lucy Liu said that Airwallex's real competitors are not limited to technology platforms such as Revolut and Wise, but traditional banks themselves: "If companies want to enter multiple countries, they often need to open accounts one by one, do compliance, and may also have to visit them in person. And through Airwallex, we can complete deployment on the same day, with almost zero cost."
The latest round of Airwallex financing in 2025 valued the financial unicorn company to US$6.2 billion, further consolidating Lucy Liu's wealth.
