Flywire Chases Big Education Payments Market in Japan

Cross-border educational payments provider Flywire has added services in Japan, where there are nearly 200,000 international students enrolled in local schools and universities.  

The Tokyo-based office of Boston-based Flywire will focus on the educational market, targeting the growing number of students from other countries studying in Japan, and Japanese students studying abroad, Flywire said in an April 14 press release. So far six schools, including Le Cordon Bleu, have signed on to use Flywire’s services in Japan.

Japanese students increasingly are going abroad to study, creating an additional opportunity. Japan’s government is promoting overseas study for its citizens with multiple programs, hoping to see 120,000 Japanese students studying outside the country by 2020, Flywire said.

Flywire, formerly peerTransfer, founded in 2010 with services launched in 2012, aims to simplify the payment process for tuition and living expenses for student studying abroad. Flywire serves schools in 18 different countries and processes payments from 220 countries and territories. It offers currency conversion, multi-lingual customer service and the ability to pay in 70 different local currencies. Currently Flywire serves more than 900 educational institutions and it’s expanding to other verticals, including health care, the company said.