Berlin School of Business & Innovation

Berlin School of Business & Innovation (BSBI) sought a payments provider that could help ease student collections and refunds for their base of international students across 170 countries and facilitate cross-border payments to agents and business developers.  

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About BSBI

BSBI Business School was established in 2018, offering business and scientific programs, and has grown to have 8,000 actively enrolled students. They enroll international students from 170 countries with that number growing each year.

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The Challenge

As a scaling educational institution, BSBI required a platform that could accept international student payments transparently and compliantly. They faced a problem many universities come up against, the traditional correspondent banking system is ineffective for transparent transfers.

“In a normal transfer, the problem is if the student doesn’t account for the bank charges or does not select the correct fields in the international payment form, there might be deductions from the amount that is transferred,” said Aditya Borah, Assistant Claims Manager of BSBI.

Compliance checks were becoming a real problem for BSBI too. In their previous process, it was becoming difficult for them to pay and receive from high-risk regions, cutting into their admin time.

“Payments from higher-risk areas require many compliance checks. Even our employees that we pay through TransferMate are subject to a lot of compliance checks if we pay them directly through a bank transfer.”

And for student refunds, BSBI needed a partner that could be consistent with payment arrival times to any students around the world who have requested a refund.

“It’s not about how fast we can process refunds, but we need to know once we pay the refunds, within three to five working days, the student is going to get a refund.”

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The Solution

BSBI has been using the TransferMate Platform to process student payments and refunds since 2020, and in that time, students have adopted the TransferMate option to pay their international student payments on BSBIs recommendation.

“We recommend each and every international student, when they are paying from their home country, to use TransferMate. The students who use TransferMate are the students who understand payments are made in their own currency.”

With TransferMate, BSBI students have been able to pay their fees more easily on the platform, and BSBI is aware the process for students to register and book their payment is painless and intuitive.

“Students register on the platform, they enter their student ID, name, and the student fee amount in euro. TransferMate then gives them a price to pay in their local currency and the methods they can use. They select whatever method they want to pay, and then they make the relevant transaction in their local currency.”

Thanks to the streamlined process, BSBI don’t have to follow up on incomplete payments, with all parties clearly aware that they have paid their fees in full.

“The overall benefit we get is the student transfers the exact amount and that reduces mistakes. We get exactly what the student has to transfer and that also helps the student to understand they have paid their fees. And the transparency of payments in the dashboard is an advantage. We can review payments from all the way back to 2020.”

Furthermore, the compliance checks TransferMate performs on behalf of client for payments and receivables has been beneficial for BSBI teams.

“TransferMate reduces a lot of clerical and administrative headaches for us when it comes to compliance checks because you guys do compliance checks on our behalf. We don’t have the bank coming to us blocking payments anymore.”

TransferMate has been critical for BSBIs student refunds and international payments. They use TransferMate to process multiple cross-border payments in bulk each month to their partners.

“We also use TransferMate to pay international refunds, and to pay our agents and business developers. Once we pay the refunds, within three to five working days, the student is going to get a refund. So yes, that consistency is key.”

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The Results

BSBI didn’t just benefit from reduced admin time and process improvements, they’ve also been able to make cost savings by using TransferMate for the international payables and receivables.

“The reduced cost of payment is an advantage. For us when making payments, or for students making payments, it is an advantage.”

BSBI were so happy with the platform that they have recommended us to another educational institution and advocate further recommendations.

“I would definitely recommend TransferMate because you provide a lot of different  systems in one. We can receive payments. We can also make payments. We can make payments to our people who work for us, like agents and business developers. It’s like three products in one partnership, right? So, I think that is one very big reason, why I would recommend TransferMate. And we have already.”

The Final Word

“TransferMate makes it easy for international students to pay us for education services and helps us improve the revenues of BSBI.”

- Aditya Borah, Assistant Claims Manager, Berlin School of Business & Innovation

Contact the team today and increase your educational institution's revenues by using TransferMate for your international student payments.