In a sentence: Malala Fund were sending over 100 – 150 international payments per week into over 10 countries, often using local currencies. They wanted to improve that process by upgrading their SAP Concur platform. 

About Malala Fund

Malala Fund is working for a world where all girls can learn and lead. Malala Fund advocates for resources and policy changes needed to give all girls a secondary education, invests in local education leaders and amplifies the voices of girls fighting for change.

Challenges

Malala Fund was experiencing difficulties with the volume of international payments and the different foreign currencies they needed to use.

“We would send out around 150 payments per week – probably just a little under that,” said Danny Andrews, Senior Accountant at Malala Fund. “We have partners in 10 countries, so these payments are in multiple currencies.” 

As its mission brought them to countries where payments of local currencies were required, they had to have a fast, reliable, and secure payments network to send payments through. The reach of the SAP Concur platform without the integration meant Malala Fund needed to use different systems such as correspondent banks to make payments.

“The gap in coverage meant difficulties with a lot of one-off payments, like paying employees in Pakistan and Nigeria. It was very disruptive to the AP flow of the organization.”

This led to several difficulties. Firstly, it meant disconnected systems and reporting tools that the financial team needed to consolidate manually. This led to increased administration time needed to process international payments, and more complex reconciliation of payments afterwards.

Correspondent banks also meant delays, as payments need to move through a complex network of arrangements between banks across the world. This also means payments are more difficult to track and, when something went wrong, a longer process to find where the payments got stuck and either bring them back and start again or move them through.

As the payments moved through so many third parties, it can also result in payments sometimes not reaching their destination in the full amount, as hidden handling fees are taken along the way. While these fees are generally not large, this can cause difficulties in reconciling them down the road. Also, in relative terms, those fees can mean a lot depending on the destination.

Solution

Malala Fund needed a simple-to-use, integrated international payments system that operates in multiple countries and multiple currencies. They needed payments to move quickly through the network, have simple but comprehensive reporting tools, and for the fee received to be exactly the fee sent.

The solution was integrating PaymentsHub by TransferMate with their SAP Concur platform.

“We did not have access to a reasonable supplier or any software just to send out payments internationally where we needed to operate. PaymentsHub was an easy solution to pick because it matched so well with our AP software. Now, we operate with reasonably seamless international payments.”

Malala Fund uses it for vendor invoices, invoice payments, paying vendors domestically and internationally, as well as employee reimbursements. On top of that, they also use it for grant payments to grantees  in 10 countries.

“The biggest benefit, simply enough, has been the ability to give confirmation to our beneficiaries. It gives them peace of mind that the payments have been sent to them.”

The platform itself has been easy-to-use for the finance team. It’s allowed for a more clear-cut international payments process and has helped with confirmations and reporting procedures. This integration of systems and their payments process has also meant less administration time for the time, and improved reconciliation.

“I came from using a different platform, and at the time it was preferred, but the transition into Transfermate was easy. It’s great for making payments, and really straightforward to use – I particularly love it for international payments. With TransferMate, we get payment confirmations, and the information feeds back to Concur and marks it as paid. The whole flow is smooth.”

Speed of transfers – an imperative for the Malala Fund team and their grantees around the world – has also been excellent under the TransferMate system.

“Speed is important to us. We come into situations very frequently where we need to send payments urgently. A lot of our grantees can be in a difficult position, and they just don’t have readily available funds. It’s something TransferMate does really well – the speed of international transfers is a big benefit.”

Final Word

“The international payment capabilities, the integration you have, the versatility in which you implement the software, the customer service, and transparency… it’s an excellent solution.”

• Danny Andrews, Senior Accountant at Malala Fund

You can donate to the Malala Fund here. To talk to the TransferMate team and see how we can support not-for-profit organizations, contact us here.