In a bid to encourage tardy students to pay their tuition fees on time, Dutch institution Groningen University is set to start sending payments requests over ABN Amro's Tikkie app.
The university says that students pay their fees by standing orders but, inevitably, some end up being declined, which can lead to the guilty parties being barred from lectures and online learning material.
Launched last year, Tikkie enables users to select a person from their WhatsApp contacts to send a payment request alongside a one-click link to the Dutch online payment service iDeal. Funds transferred over iDeal are automatically credited to the customer's current account.
The app is popular among students, regularly used by them to pay each other back for things such as lunches, and the university is hoping that this means messages sent over it will actually be read so recipients (or their parents) can pay up.
Frank Verkerk, chief digital officer, ABN Amro, says: "Tikkie has been developed as a handy and friendly way to send payment requests among friends. But Tikkie can also be used by institutes of education to make it easier for students to pay tuition fees. Both the universities and the students are set to gain from this."