About English Path
English Path has 13 language schools across 10 countries, with major campuses in Dubai and Malta, plus new locations in Paris, Berlin, and Riyadh. At any time, 1,000–1,500 students are enrolled, spanning Latin America, Turkey, the Middle East, China, and seasonal Young Learners cohorts.
“It’s a pretty exciting time – we’ve had double-digit growth year-on-year,” says Priscilla Sellers, Senior Finance Business Partner at English Path.
The Challenge
English Path has grown rapidly, bringing complexity to how it managed payments across all the schools. Using multiple providers brought inconsistency in fees, high FX costs, and frictions in processing and matching student payments.
Before TransferMate, English Path relied on multiple payment routes – bank transfers, card processors and another fintech provider – and the experience varied by campus. Fees and FX spreads often surprised students and created shortfalls for English Path.
“We had student complaints about higher fees or FX spreads. There was no matching with standard currency exchange markets, and some card processors would charge extortionate fees,” Priscilla explains.
Bank transfers were also unpredictable. With clearing banks and multiple intermediaries in the chain, funds could lag or bounce, creating last-minute stress for short-stay students.
“Sometimes there are four parties involved. Students feel they’ve paid, but the money hasn’t landed – or gets held and sent back. No one can see where it is.”
Short-payments were common too, particularly from certain corridors.
“With bank transfers, their bank takes a fee, our bank takes a fee, and a bank in the middle might take a fee. Turkish banks were taking up to €50 a time, so we had to add surcharges. This made the experience worse for the students, and more manual for us to manage.”
Cards weren’t a silver bullet; country restrictions or sanctions flags meant valid cards were rejected.
“Some card types from specific countries just aren’t accepted due to geopolitical flags. That’s a real barrier for families.”
Operationally, growth amplified these pain points. Each English Path school is a separate legal entity, so cash had to be ring-fenced and reported independently. Legacy links and portals weren’t set up correctly, slowing responses and eroding trust.
“The student thinks the portal is ours, so complaints come to us. But other providers were slow to reply, which hurt our reputation and created bottlenecks. When there’s a problem with payments – with someone’s money – they issue has to be identified and resolved quickly. Our hands were tied with other providers; we simply didn’t have the answers in front of us.”
The Solution
TransferMate worked with English Path to create separate payment portals for each school, each mapped to the correct bank account and currency and embedded across English Path’s websites and materials. A standardised, school-by-school setup – with clear rails, local currency choice, and escrowed refunds.
“It’s now very clear which school they’re paying. If it should be in pounds, it won’t arrive in euros by mistake. The money flows to the right entity every time.”
Students (or agents) choose their preferred method – local-currency bank transfer, cards, or other options – while English Path’s back office sees live status updates (registered, paid, refund available) and gets daily email alerts.
“We see a summary of payments and get daily notifications. Once triggered, we know cash will land in 2–3 days and match back cleanly.”
For visa-linked bookings, TransferMate’s escrow provides independent assurance: funds are held and returned to the originating account on refusal.
“Escrow gives families peace of mind – if a visa is refused, refunds go back to source. It’s safer for them and tidier for us.”
Customer service proved pivotal. One example was when a Mexican agent struggled with card issues, TransferMate connected English Path with a local specialist who intervened in the right language and time-zone.
“They called the agent locally, explained the technical steps (they were missing a national ID code), and got it over the line. That kind of hands-on help matters.”
Refunds are now controlled and compliant. Only authorised English Path users can issue refunds after checks; no more handwritten IBANs and back-and-forth on source accounts.
“Refunds are now a click once our governance checks pass. Authorised users only – it’s clean and controlled.”
The Results
By standardising on TransferMate, English Path has reduced cost surprises, improved payment certainty, and freed up team capacity – all while giving students a calmer, more transparent experience.
“The big win is transparency – the daily emails, the status tracking, and the consistency. We can see payments are moving, and cash hits the account in about 2–3 days.”
Reconciliation and allocation are largely automated, shrinking manual effort and cross-team chasing.
“Payment allocation is now automated. Our team does a final belt-and-braces check – no more investigating. It’s reduced the workload for our allocation team by about 25%.”
Fewer short-payments and card roadblocks mean fewer inbound queries; exceptions are now the exception.
“It’s mostly no news is good news. We might see two ‘exception’ cases a month now – and we can focus on those quickly.”
Entity-level clarity (one portal per school, one currency per flow) simplifies month-end and audit trails.
“Each school gets its own link, account, and currency. That’s huge for reporting and avoiding misapplied funds.”
Families benefit from local-currency choice and predictable totals, without the mental arithmetic or hidden deductions of traditional wires.
“Students don’t need to do currency acrobatics. What they see is what they pay – that peace of mind is important.”
And when issues arise, fast, human support de-escalates situations before they dent the relationship.
“We usually get a response within 24 hours – often faster. Even for multi-currency, multi-time-zone cases, we get a holding note and then a solution.”
The Final Word
“TransferMate helped us standardise payments across 13 schools, keep funds in the right currency and entity, and automate allocation. Students get local-currency clarity; we get clean reconciliation and faster refunds. The responsiveness – from our advisor Jefferson to local specialists – has built a genuine partnership. For schools scaling or working across borders, I’d recommend TransferMate.”
- Priscilla Sellers, Senior Finance Business Partner at English Path.
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