Flywire partners with Volvo’s International Student Program

Flywire has entered into an agreement with Volvo Car USA to support international receivables for Volvo’s US sales organization including a new program that makes it easier for international students attending schools in the US to lease and pay for vehicles. Volvo’s International Student Program provides students with a convenient way to lease a Volvo vehicle during their time in school. We will help international students make cross-border payments via their preferred method, in their preferred currency, while also streamlining payment tracking and reconciliation for Volvo Car Financial Services.

Volvo’s new program removes the obstacles that most international students face when trying to obtain a vehicle in the US, such as a lack of US credit history and the burden of selling a car upon graduating. Students can make one easy, upfront payment and drive a brand new Volvo for the duration of their school term. All factory scheduled maintenance and auto insurance* are included. At the end of the term, the driver simply drops the car off at the Volvo dealer. More details are available here.

“As economies become more global, cross-border transactions are much more common. Yet, international wire and bank transfers are still very complex and costly,” said Jeff Althaus, executive vice president at Flywire responsible for our business segment. “The lack of transparency makes cross-border transactions unnecessarily difficult for any enterprise or institution, and their customers – impacting operating costs, cash flow, customer satisfaction, and business growth. We’re pleased to partner with Volvo to take these challenges out of the leasing payment experience and make it as smooth as possible for both their customers and their operations staff.”

“Our goal is to make life less complicated for our customers and Flywire helps us do that for international students,” said Rick Bryant, Vice President of Sales Operations for Volvo Car USA, “Volvo’s new international student program reduces the risk of international transactions for Volvo’s retailers while providing a luxury vehicle on convenient terms for visiting students.”

International students make up a large, growing, and affluent market in the US today. In 2016, a record 1.2 million international students attended American colleges and universities, an increase of 6.5 percent from the year before.

“This is just like our core business, applied to Volvo’s clever leasing use case,” Althaus said. He noted that as students from all over the world are making their selections, they are able to collect and reconcile those high-value payments — denominated to the right currency — for Volvo, down to the details that match the student and the vehicle identification number to the dealership.

Althaus said this gives Volvo complete visibility of the end-to-end transaction spectrum. Dealerships are also able to get paid faster and move more vehicles through products and promotions.

It’s a big opportunity, according to Althaus, one that — once the opportunity is understood more broadly — is bigger than the automotive vehicle industry.

Even when it comes to its partnership with Volvo, Althaus noted, it is only just “scratching the surface” of what this type of international leasing program can do. In a world where people are living increasing international lives, the need to secure transportation isn’t just for the college kid use case. Expats, for example, face similar needs and issues that can be solved in the same way.

There’s a use case for travel, too, Althaus explained. Our partnership with Hilton has many of the same characteristics: properties all over the world with guests from all over the world, and the need to reconcile and track payments to truly globalize them.

“It has become really interesting for us as we look at what we’ve been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time with brands like Volvo and Hilton that are using us as their receivables processing partner,” Althaus noted.

*Volvo blanket insurance policy not available in New Mexico, Georgia, Wisconsin or Texas

### About Volvo Car USA

Volvo Car USA, LLC is a subsidiary of Volvo Car Group of Gothenburg, Sweden. VCUSA provides marketing, sales, parts, service, technology and training support to Volvo automobile retailers in the United States. For more information, please refer to the VCUSA media website at: http://www.media.volvocars.com/us.