Accounting & Finance | News

peerTransfer Helps Boarding Schools Handle Tuition Currency Exchange

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 12/04/12

A company that facilitates international payments for students in higher education is taking its service into the K-12 segment too. peerTransfer has struck agreements with several boarding schools in the United States and Canada to handle financial transactions of students attending from other countries. Traditionally, they've had to rely on complex and confusing banking services for these activities.

Culver Academies in Indiana, The Harker School in San Jose, CA, and Phillips Academy Andover in Massachusetts are all using the service, which provides 24/7 multilingual customer support and exchange rates that are, according to the company, lower than bank fees. Students and school staff are able to track payments through the transfer process. The student's family pays in the currency of choice.

The service also provides functionality to enable schools to reconcile international payments directly in their financial systems. "peerTransfer's service is impeccable and efficient. They make my job easier," said Marie Ferraguto, treasurer for Phillips Academy.

According to Boarding School Review, a Web resource, the average annual cost for tuition at boarding schools is $42,500. And the number of students attending schools in North America is rising. The challenge of handling the international exchange aspects of tuition and other expenses is what peerTransfer attempts to streamline.

"International payments are extremely frustrating for students and their families as well as school administrators," noted CEO Iker Marcaide. "We aim to offer them an alternative solution to the traditional banking system which is incredibly inefficient, outdated, and costly."