The online payments technology is specifically designed to reduce the banking and the administrative cost associated with collecting fees from overseas students and enables a speedier payments process for both the student and university.

University finance departments have been struggling to administrate the numbers of international students flocking to study in the UK. According to statistics, a total of 405,000 international students studied at UK higher education institutions in 2010, an increase of 10% from 20091. Around 16% of all students in the UK are international.

The acquisition of the specialist online payments technology strengthens Travelex Global Business Payments' position in a sector where it already provides bespoke payment solutions to more than 300 universities globally. Travelex estimates that the Pay 24-7 platform technology will save the average university around £50,000 a year in fee processing costs alone.2

Pay 24-7 simplifies the payment process for universities collecting payment from their overseas students. Universities can receive overseas students' payments within 24 hours through access to the Travelex's GEO network, which provides a cheaper, faster and more accurate payment network in over 70 countries and 135 currencies. Universities are able to offer their students a range of cost effective payment options including in transfers the student's home currency by bank transfer or bank card using Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) capability.

"Pay 24-7 specialist online payments technology enables Travelex Global Business Payments to offer universities a streamlined payments process that helps to ensure that its students' transition from their home countries to their chosen university is stress free," comments David Sear Divisional Managing Director of Travelex Global Business Payments. "It also simplifies the process for university departments, with a view to lowering administrative overheads and reducing the number of errors that manual processes often introduce."

Travelex Global Business Payments works with 60% of the top 200 UK universities in the Times Higher Education's World University Ranking3, including the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and the London School of Economics. In Australia, Travelex works alongside the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, two of the top three Universities in the United States, four of the top 10 Universities in Canada and a leading French University.