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St. Edwards saw the potential of integrating TransferMate with TouchNet to improve the international student payment process. As one of the earliest users, they have been benefiting ever since.
About St. Edwards
St. Edward's University is a liberal arts university in Austin, Texas. Founded in the late 1800s, it welcomes over 3,000 students per year and runs undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as a doctoral program.
Its international student population is around 200 per year.
The Challenge
The St. Edward’s University team loves technology, utilizing it to do more with less whenever the opportunity arises. When it came to processing international payments, they could see the potential of technology to solve a lot of the challenges they were facing.
“International student payments were much more complicated than domestic ones, for both the students and us,” said Peter J. Beilharz, Director of Student Accounts, St. Edward’s University. “We had a payment gateway for our US-based students, but not a clear pathway for international ones. Without an integrated solution, we were having to try to take payments in all sorts of ways.”
US students had a variety of payment options, like credit cards, debit cards, and ACH, whereas international students found it much more difficult to make their payments.
“International students were kind of left behind when it came to payment options, and they found it particularly difficult to set up payment plans. Wire transfers were tough and, in the past, some would even resort to paying with cash. It left us trying to figure out how to manage it all.”
One concrete difficulty was accuracy of payments coming from abroad. With the inherent complications, students could easily make a misstep when sending money internationally.
“We’d sometimes have payments that were $15 or $50 dollars short, because the student hadn’t accounted for the fee for initiating the wire transfer, or because they didn’t get the exchange rate right. We’d then have to ask them to initiate another wire, which is never a nice thing to tell a student.”
The overall result was a lot of international students paying late in the day, and a lot of manual work for the St. Edwards team. Even simply matching payments to the student was a challenge.
“We’d often be saying “We're waiting for a wired transfer to come in for this student. Has it come in?" Then we’d see one has come into the bank, but it wouldn’t have a matching reference number or a name associated with it, and we’d have to figure out which student had made the payment, and then apply that payment to the right student account. It could take days, particularly when you’re all the payments are coming in at the same time.”
The Solution
As long-time clients of TouchNet, and long-time users of TransferMate, they were one of the first universities to use the integration between the two, and were part of the testing group at the beginning of the partnership.
“We’ve been there from the beginning. We had been working separately with TransferMate and saw its potential combined with TouchNet. We wanted this integrated. We said "Can you make this happen? Can you talk with TouchNet?””
St. Edwards now has TransferMate as an option for all their international students to pay through, simplifying the process for all parties. For the students, it’s given them more options to pay, quicker payment times, and accurate payments are built into the process.
“International students can pay us as easily as a domestic student, and have multiple options on how to pay. Through TransferMate, they can lock in the exchange rate at point of payment, not have to worry about accounting for transfer fees, and be able to pick a payment option that suits them.”
It all happens within an integrated system that is linked to their student profile, meaning data is updated live for everyone, and they are not directed to 3rd party website or platforms to make the payment.
“They can see that they’ve paid in their student profile, and they know how much they owe if they’re using a payment plan. They don’t have to leave our branded TouchNet portal to make the payment and, when you are sending so much money, that helps a lot to build trust in the process.”
The integration has greatly reduced the amount of manual work and reconciliation the St. Edwards team need for processing international payments. They no longer spend time searching for payments, matching them to the right student, and uploading the data.
“There is no reconciliation now. With TransferMate, it just goes through. It's like a regular U.S payment. There’s no matching of payments, because it’s already matched within TouchNet. When a payment is a TransferMate one, it all goes through smoothly."
Results
Using the TransferMate integration with TouchNet for international student payments has resulted in a smoother experience for everybody. For students, it’s a much more simplified process.
“Paying is easy for international students, and keeping track of their payments is easy too. The information is all accessible for them. The payments are also twice as fast reaching our accounts compared to what they used to be, which means that they quickly get that peace of mind that the payment has gone through.”
The St. Edwards team also have to do much less manual work on the back-end.
“Everything is all integrated now. We don’t have to follow every individual payment that comes in. it just automatically hits the student account. Beyond checking on a macro level that everything matches, there’s really not any manual work to do anymore.”
The team have also benefited from excellent customer service from the TransferMate team.
“TransferMate has the best customer service too. Whenever we have a problem, and it’s usually an error from the student side, TransferMate has always been very helpful in identifying, "Well, here's what the issue is." And they also reach out to the payer, which takes it off our hands.”
Peter has found himself recommending TransferMate to other TouchNet schools and universities.
“We have a little consortium where we get together and chat about the industry, and I do recommend TransferMate to them. We’ve been with you since the beginning, and it’s worked out really well for us.”
Final Word
“TransferMate is the payment option we recommend first. It’s integration with TouchNet makes international payments as easy as a domestic one for everybody.”
- Peter J. Beilharz, Director of Student Accounts, St. Edward’s University
To get in touch about the TransferMate integration with TouchNet, go to the TouchNet Partner Directory.
