Flywire Corporation (Nasdaq: FLYW) (Flywire), a global payments enablement and software company, today announced that it has partnered with HDFC Bank Limited, India’s largest private-sector bank, to enable Indian payers to seamlessly and digitally pay international education fees to higher education institutions all over the world.
The integration provides students and families a streamlined experience when making high-value education payments and helps them comply with LRS requirements, which are guidelines to help streamline overseas transactions and investments for Indian residents.
Flywire integrates directly into HDFC Bank’s banking platform, providing Indian students with a fully digital checkout experience for their transactions, ranging from application fees to tuition payments. Students can make the payment in Indian rupees, and benefit from a secure and streamlined payment experience, with assurance that the funds are delivered to the educational institution. Likewise, institutions accepting payments through Flywire benefit from receiving payments on time in the local currency, as well as full transparency into the transaction history, which eases their reconciliation processes and streamlines operational efficiencies.
As the demand for higher education experiences abroad remains strong, Indian students are increasingly an important cohort from which to recruit. According to the 2022 Open Doors Report, nearly 200,000 Indian students studied in the United States during the 2021-2022 academic year, which represents a 19% increase over the prior year. Another report by ICEF also forecasts that the Indian outbound student population will go to a wider range of host countries, and will more than double over the next few years, to reach 1.8 million students by 2024.
Despite these mobility trends, Indian students have traditionally been faced with a lengthy, paper-based experience when it comes to making tuition payments. As a result, Indian students are seeking a simpler, more flexible payment process for their international payments. According to a Flywire report, 82% of Indian students surveyed believe that simplified payment processes would improve their education experience.
The partnership between Flywire and HDFC Bank provides an innovative approach to education payments and offers many benefits to students and institutions alike. First, the integration creates a seamless and digital payment experience, transforming what was formerly a lengthy and complex process to one that is completely online. The integration also streamlines the compliance process for the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS), which are guidelines set by the Reserve Bank of India that enable Indian residents to remit up to $250,000 USD overseas, per financial year. Flywire and HDFC Bank provide all the necessary verification under LRS requirements quickly, and all from within the payer’s digital payment experience. The integration also benefits institutions, as they can automatically capture all relevant student information, ensuring payments are accurate and identifiable. Flywire identifies the source of payments delivered to an institutions’ bank account and automatically posts each payment to the correct student record.
“One of the leading advantages of this partnership is the sheer convenience of it for payers, as it reduces time and documentation they’d normally have to provide,” said Mohit Kansal, VP of Global Payments, Flywire. “The combination of Flywire’s payment technology and HDFC’s vast banking network creates an open-banking experience for Indian payers, enabling them to transform what could normally be a paper-based process, to one that’s now completely online.”
“We are pleased to partner with Flywire and offer a comprehensive suite of payments solutions to Indian students,” said Jatinder Gupta, Business Head - Retail Trade and Forex. “Our combined network and scale of solutions will allow students and families to conveniently and securely manage their international payments, whether they’re in India or abroad. By partnering with Flywire, we’re expanding the footprint of our payments solutions to benefit the next generation of students.”