FinTechs and payments for international education

This paper examines the landscape of global student mobility, giving special attention to the emergence of FinTechs in the international education payment space. Banks, which have at best been participants in the market for crossborder remittance of person-to-person and personto- business/university payments, are now seeing new innovative FinTechs solving customer pain points, making transactions more efficient and simple. This paper maps the huge market demand for speed, safety and security in educationrelated payment instruments. With COVID-19 creating a new normal, the paper also describes how various FinTechs have launched creative solutions to solve payment issues for students and reconciliation-related challenges for universities and other beneficiaries by setting up smart digital interfaces. The issues faced by students and parents at a larger level are very similar to the frictions and challenges seen with peer-to-peer payments.