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 bursar's offices have been struggling to administrate the numbers of international students flocking to study in the US. According to recent statistics, the number of international students in the United States has increased by 3% to 690,923 during the 2009/10 academic year.(1)

The acquisition of the specialist online payments technology strengthens Travelex Global Business Payments' position in a sector where it already provides custom payment solutions to more than 300 universities globally. Travelex estimates that the Pay 24-7 platform technology will save the average university around $80,000 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."

Travellex Global Business Payments works with nearly half of the top 50 universities in North America, according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.(3) Internationally, Travelex works with eight of the top 20 universities to process their payments and receivables, including the UK's Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London School of Economics, Australia's University of Sydney, Canada's York University and several others across the United States and France.