The Ultimate Guide to Credit Cards
Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Flywire Leverages Software, Technology, and Industry Expertise to Streamline Payment Processing for Clients

Flywire Expedites Payment Processing For Businesses
Andrew Allen

Writer: Andrew Allen

Andrew Allen

Andrew Allen, Staff Writer

For nearly 20 years, Andrew has worked for financial institutions ranging from regional investment organizations to some of the largest banks in the world. At Wells Fargo, Andrew was a Consultant within the Insight and Innovation division. A graduate of the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, Andrew’s goal has been promoting personal financial wellness and solid money decisions. As a Staff Writer for CardRates, Andrew seeks to inform readers of solutions to help them on their path to financial freedom.

See Full Bio »
Close
Lillian Guevara-Castro

Editor: Lillian Guevara-Castro

Lillian Guevara-Castro

Lillian Guevara-Castro, Senior Editor

Lillian Guevara-Castro brings more than 30 years of editing and journalism experience to the CardRates team. She has worked at The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Gwinnett Daily News, Gainesville Sun, and The New York Times, where she covered demographics, consumer issues, and the business and financial sectors. Lillian has a degree in journalism and communications from Georgia State University and brings her fact-checking expertise to ensure Digital Brands content is accurate and engaging.

See Full Bio »
Close
Ashley Fricker

Reviewer: Ashley Fricker

Ashley Fricker

Ashley Fricker, Senior Editor

Ashley Fricker has more than a decade of experience as a finance contributor and editor, and has specialized in the credit card industry since 2015. Her credit card commentary is featured on national media outlets that include CNBC, MarketWatch, Investopedia, and Reader's Digest, among many others. She has worked closely with the world’s largest banks and financial institutions, up-and-coming fintech companies, and press and news outlets to curate comprehensive content and media. Ashley holds a bachelor's degree in multimedia journalism from Florida Atlantic University.

See Full Bio »
Close

Our experts and industry insiders blog the latest news, studies and current events from inside the credit card industry. Our articles follow strict editorial guidelines.

In a Nutshell:  An increasingly interconnected world demands that payments travel from sender to recipient as seamlessly as possible. Flywire combines its proprietary global payments network, next-gen payments platform and vertical-specific software to deliver the most important and complex payments for its clients and their customers. The company serves clients in the education, healthcare, B2B  travel industries 

Consumers planning to make a relatively expensive purchase, such as buying a vacation package or paying tuition and other higher education expenses, may do a lot of research before finalizing their purchase. But even the most thorough researcher won’t likely investigate how their payment will arrive at its intended recipient.

Payment processors move money from one party to another, providing buyers and sellers with the confidence that transactions will occur as they expect them to. Flywire does even more than this. Flywire, a global payments enablement and software company, helps clients get paid and leverages software to augment its clients’ workflows. Flywire’s clients integrate their payments platform into their existing apps and workflows and have access to a suite of solutions including tailored invoicing, settlement and reconciliation tools, single sign-on, and rich payments functionality that spans integrated checkout, recurring payments, and split payouts. 

Flywire logo

We spoke with Mohit Kansal, Flywire’s Senior Vice President of Global Payments and Payer Services, to learn more about the company’s innovative offerings.

Kansal said Flywire began as a business that helped educational institutions receive money from students around the world. He said Flywire’s founder was inspired to start the company when a payment he sent from Spain didn’t arrive at its destination — a university in the U.S. 

Flywire has expanded its services since its early years. Kansal said Flywire used to sell cross-border payment solutions solely to institutions in the U.S. education sector.

“Fast forward to today, and we’re selling to clients in more than 50 countries,” Kansal said. “We operate in four sectors — global education, travel, healthcare, and B2B industries like manufacturing, distribution, franchising and more. We sell multiple products, including cross-border payments, domestic payments, receivables, and payables. And we’re doing a lot more things. The business has quickly become very complex.”

Kansal said Flywire’s solutions sit at the intersection of software and payments. He said the company performs integrations into the systems that finance, IT, and other departments use to ensure payment updates occur promptly.

Custom Solutions Meet Industry-Specific Needs

Kansal said numerous companies offer payment services, but where Flywire excels is in deeply understanding the industries they partner with to create solutions that align with their needs. He said Flywire removes the burden of managing payments for its clients.

Kansal said the company’s software, industry expertise, and payment network help it deliver solutions its clients appreciate.

“That’s where the magic happens,” Kansal said. “It’s not any one thing that we offer — it’s everything together. We completely remove the pain of managing payments for our clients. If one of our clients is involved in moving money from one part of the world to another, we’ll handle any issues with the payment so our client doesn’t have to.”

Flywire's healthcare results
Flywire offers payment solutions to the healthcare industry.

Flywire’s expansion into other industries was driven in part by client feedback. A conversation with one of the company’s clients in the education industry revealed that its medical campus faced payment challenges similar to those of educational institutions. The conversation complemented the company’s strategic planning and inspired Flywire to consider offering solutions to the healthcare industry

The needs of Flywire’s clients inform the company’s product development, and Kansal said Flywire enjoys hearing about its clients’ payment needs because it can develop solutions for them. Flywire has quickly and efficiently expanded internationally thanks to its next-gen payments platform and proprietary payment network.

Businesses in different industries use different operating methods, systems and more – which is why Flywire tailors its products to meet industry-specific needs. Kansal said the company helps businesses get paid, and it can process payments of all sizes.

“We can help clients with involved payment issues,” Kansal said. “Some clients don’t just need a payment — they may need a different disbursement schedule from what is standard. We like that type of complexity. And, obviously, there are nuances in each of the sectors we work with.”

Client Feedback Helps Inform Flywire’s Strategy

Payment standards differ from country to country, which can make moving money across borders on non-card payment rails difficult. Payers in regions like India and China also need to comply with guidelines set out by their regulators, which can be a complex and cumbersome process.

Mohit Kansal
Mohit Kansal is Flywire’s Senior Vice President of Global Payments and Payer Services.

Flywire is uniquely suited to facilitating these payments. And they do this while maintaining PCI compliance and security requirements, managing regulatory complexities of cross-border payments, and more. This is a critical piece of the payments ecosystem they have invested in.

Kansal said some payments require Flywire to calculate taxes based on the transaction’s size or purpose. The company knows exactly what type of information needs to accompany payments to allow for proper reconciliation.

Clients may not know the local method of payment in a foreign country, but Flywire can offer multiple payment methods and find solutions to address a client’s international payment concerns.

Flywire prides itself on a continuous feedback loop, as well as around the clock customer support, to ensure its solutions and services match customer expectations. Kansal said Flywire holds sessions where sets of clients on the company’s advisory board tell Flywire what’s happening in their worlds. He said clients also communicate directly with their relationship manager and regularly share issues with them.

“In terms of feedback, it really depends on the vertical,” Kansal said. “We do conferences where we showcase our products and collect feedback. In terms of supporting issues clients have, we have a very active customer support function. We have experts who help clients when they have a problem with a payment. We specialize in handling exceptions, and there will be exceptions when it comes to payments. And we ensure all payments are processed in a compliant way.”

Helping Clients Save Time and Money

Kansal said Flywire receives client testimonials thanking the company for solving its payments-related problems. He said the company’s clients in the education sector used to send Flywire pictures of stacks of checks they had received from 529 providers that the clients couldn’t reconcile.

Kansal said the educational institutions required assistance because the checks they received from students had missing information. He said Flywire digitized the process of accepting student payments, and its solutions have substantially minimized the time required for educational institutions to process student payments.

Kansal said Flywire’s solutions also reduce stress for individuals making payments to institutions of higher education. He said students who send a $30,000 check for tuition can be worried when their school doesn’t confirm receipt of their payment quickly.

“Our solutions allow schools to focus on more important things,” Kansal said. “They shouldn’t have to look at bank messages to figure out whose mom or aunt submitted a payment on behalf of a student. And they shouldn’t have to spend time figuring out if people are submitting partial or full payments. There are better things they could be doing with their time.”

Flywire’s solutions can save its clients time and money. Kansal said Flywire deploys solutions in a way that minimizes client costs, and clients enjoy the experience of working with the company’s technology and team. He said Flywire has expedited healthcare payments to allow patients to access treatments and surgeries faster.

Kansal said he is excited about Flywire’s growth opportunities and its plans for the future.

“We have a phenomenal team, and we serve customers all over the world,” Kansal said. “There’s a lot of runway for us to keep growing and solving problems for our customers.”