peerTransfer announced today that in the second quarter of this year, 12 new schools selected them as their online payment provider for international students. The new schools that have been added to the list include The College of Wooster, University of Portland, Reed College, Michigan Technological University, Montana Tech, Suffolk University. They join the current list of schools including Bryn Mawr and Wellesley College that are already using the service.
peerTransfer launched earlier this year and provides time and cost saving solutions for international students on tuition and other education related payments. peerTransfer, founded out of MIT, makes it up to five times cheaper to send international college tuition payments. We profiled the company last fall in an article six startups putting Boston on the map for payments. The company found a niche for their offering an have found a way to not only drive value for students and parents, but also to colleges and universities.
How does it actually work? Students send money through peerTransfer by entering their personal information and the currency at hand. peerTransfer then bundles payments in the same currencies together to score a better exchange rate at wholesale. This ends of saving 3-5% of the amount transferred; on a $40,000 tuition payment that can amount to around $1500.
Why are institutions interested in peerTransfer? Paul Fleck, bursar for Suffolk University who went live with peerTransfer in April, commented.
“We chose peerTransfer because we wanted to make our international students’ experience as pleasant and affordable as possible. peerTransfer’s solution helps us achieve this by saving our students a significant amount of time and money, and giving them the added peace of mind knowing we have received their payment.In addition, we expect it will help us reconcile and post payments in a more streamlined and straightforward way, eliminating missing information and saving the university a meaningful amount of time.”
peerTransfer thinks that by adopting its solution, which is free for universities, will help the universities and their partner schools’ international student population save money. Iker Marcaid, the founder and CEO of peerTranspher stated that
“Students save up to $1,500 for a $40,000 tuition payment thanks to preferential currency exchange rates and lower fees. peerTransfer is an online focused solution with no costly branches like traditional banks. We can just share the favorable rates from bundled wholesale foreign currency purchases with students, generating them substantial savings. At the same time, this solution student accounts.”
