As a study destination, Germany is attractive on many fronts. It has an outstanding reputation for education - with over 400 institutions to choose from - excellent employment prospects and a great standard of living. Its popularity among international students is booming, with recent figures showing an increase of 5.7% over the past two years.
For more than 50 years, SRH Universities (SRH), a German education and health not-for-profit, has been guiding students along their personal educational path. Students can choose to study in-person at any of their five on-campus universities, located in multiple locations across Germany such as Heidelberg, or at their Distance Learning University.
The SRH group offers students more than 200 future-oriented degree programmes spanning a wide variety of subject areas. Students can study, in German or English, almost anything - from engineering, IT, business and leadership to creative arts, law to web development and music production to supply chain management and more. With an offering so comprehensive and diverse, SRH offers students a personalised education that knows no boundaries, laying the foundations for a successful life.
Facts
Challenge: Frustration over bank transfers provided opportunity for improvement
International applicants and students often paid their tuition fees using bank transfers, which is common across Germany. However, this typically resulted in a delay - sometimes of several days - between payment confirmation and delivery. It was also difficult and time consuming for the SRH Finance team to reconcile the payments because the amount they received often didn’t correspond to an invoice the university had issued. Failure to reconcile a payment ultimately impacted the student experience because a student’s admission letter couldn’t be issued before their enrollment fee had been confirmed, meaning they couldn’t enrol for their course unless the payment issue was rectified.
Overall, the payment process was extremely unsatisfactory, time consuming and frustrating for everyone involved so SRH turned to Flywire for a solution.
Solution: Fast-tracked payments, enhanced security and integrated reconciliation
SRH joined forces with Flywire in 2019, having met the team at an international education conference the year before. After describing their issues to Flywire, it became clear to SRH that Flywire could help solve their payment problems. The decision to work with Flywire was made even easier because of the number, and calibre, of education clients Flywire partners with around the world.
An added bonus was Flywire’s ability to seamlessly integrate with the SRH application management system, DreamApply. In doing so, SRH students are now able to securely pay their application or tuition fees in just one click within the DreamApply environment. They no longer need to worry about bank charges or missing payment deadlines. For SRH staff, this integration means that reconciliation is automatic so payments are quickly allocated and tracked against the correct student account, in real time, saving hours in manual processing.
By helping to transform SRH’s processes, Flywire makes payments faster, more secure, and trackable for all parties, ultimately improving the overall student experience.
Results
Flywire was the perfect match for SRH. They offer a state-of-the-art solution for international students and universities for transferring money.