University of Denver elevates its international student payments through seamless integration

The Challenge

A fragmented tuition payments experience

The University of Denver (DU) is a private research institution in Colorado, USA recognized for programs in business, law, and international studies, with a strong emphasis on experiential learning and global engagement.

The university’s student community includes 1,000 international students from more than 80 countries. A smooth, trusted cross-border payment experience is an important part of serving its global student base.

However, incoming international tuition payments had become a source of friction for DU due to a manual process that resided outside of the university’s bill-payment suite, and lacked  integration.

Mic Grebenc, Director of Student Billing at the University of Denver, elaborates, “This lack of integration meant our international students had to leave the university’s website to complete their payment on a third-party site.

“Many of these students didn’t feel confident about sending funds through an unfamiliar external site. They also had limited visibility into the status of their payment, which contributed to a higher volume of inbound inquiries.”

Behind the scenes, the process was equally challenging for the university finance office. “Staff had to manually download reconciliation files, match payments to student records inside the TouchNet bill-payment suite, and then notify students that their payments were complete. The workflow was time intensive, resource heavy, and vulnerable to human error.”

The Solution

Seamless integration enhances the student payment experience

DU was already in conversation with Convera about improving outgoing international payments when it asked about a solution for incoming student payments as well.

“That conversation revealed a strong fit,” explains Mic. “Convera already had a partnership with our bill-payment provider, TouchNet, which meant we could easily integrate Convera’s GlobalPay for Students platform into our existing payment environment.”

“Once internal approvals were completed and contracts executed, the actual Convera – TouchNet integration was implemented over a few  hours , with no burden on our IT team. It was a very smooth process.”

GlobalPay for Students is an online platform that empowers students to pay international tuition and fees in more than 140 currencies across 200 countries and territories.

Students can lock in an exchange rate for up to 72 hours, for greater certainty over the total cost of payment in their local currency, while choosing from a broad range of payment methods, including bank transfer, credit or debit card, and e-wallets.

International students also benefit from Convera’s price-promise guarantee on bank transfers. If the total cost of making the transfer is lower with their bank than the amount quoted on Convera GlobalPay for Students, Convera will honor the bank’s final price.

The Results

Reduced complexity for staff and improved student experience

The impact of the Convera – TouchNet integration was immediate across both the student experience and internal operations.

“Students now log into their account using single sign-on (SSO), access their bill, select Convera as the payment method, and complete the transaction without leaving the university website,” says Mic. “Students have more trust in the payment process now that they remain within the university’s secure environment.”

 From an operational standpoint, Convera’s international student payments solution delivers complete control without the complexity of managing multiple platforms, while eliminating manual payment posting and saving valuable time and resources.

“We’ve also seen a meaningful reduction in payment-related inquiries. Students now receive real-time status updates and can easily reference payment instructions in the portal, which means staff spend minimal to no time fielding routine questions.”

With a modernized, integrated payment experience now in place, the University of Denver is better positioned to support its international student community with a trust-worthy, frictionless, and efficient payments process.

“Overall, there’s significantly less lift involved in managing international student payments. And, the support we receive from the Convera team is second to none. I can see us continuing to work together long into the future.”