FLYWIRE
A decade ago, transferring tuition from the US to a UK university, for example, posed significant difficulties around timing, reference information and proper routing.
“ If you don’ t do that correctly, visas are held up and lives can be turned upside down,” Thérèse explains.“ When Flywire came on the scene, it was very innovative.”
Since its founding, Flywire has expanded well beyond education. The company now also serves the Travel, B2B, and Healthcare industries, and is focused on delivering on large-value, high-complexity domestic and international payments and leveraging software to deeply embed in clients’ core systems of record. Delivering large-value, high-complexity transactions in some of the most regulated industries brings both practical and philosophical challenges for operations teams.
“ As we’ ve scaled and matured, there has been a meaningful shift around how we invest our resources.”
The company must balance maintaining entrepreneurial agility with implementing the structure and discipline required for sustained growth at scale. This evolution directly impacts how Flywire approaches product development and client relationships.
Designing solutions, not processing payments As an operations leader, Thérèse emphasises that Flywire’ s approach differs fundamentally from what she calls“ payments factories” – providers focused purely on volume. Instead, the company invests significant time understanding the specific friction points clients face.
“ Flywire sits down and asks the bigger question: what problem are you trying to solve?,” she says.“ Yes, there’ s a payment to be made, but what’ s the friction before, during and after?”
This philosophy manifested clearly in Flywire’ s development of its US loan disbursement solution for UK universities. American students frequently rely on federal or private loans to fund their education. When those students study abroad – particularly in the UK – the payment process becomes extraordinarily complex for students and institutions.
Last year, Thérèse assembled a team comprising engineers, product designers, subject matter experts and payables specialists, spending a week travelling across the UK and meeting with university clients to understand the complexity first hand.
“ This team went across the UK, sat with people and came to understand that this process was a beast,” she remembers.“ There was nothing good about it. There was friction all over the place. `”
What followed exemplifies Flywire’ s collaborative development approach. Rather than disappearing for months to build a solution, the team worked iteratively with university partners. Clients received regular demonstrations of work in progress, providing feedback that shaped the final product.
“‘ We thought you said this, but you actually meant this’ – we encountered none of that, because when you do it incrementally, you catch yourself,” she explains. The team launched the solution in time for September’ s academic peak.
flywire. com