Mitigating Risk With Payment Flexibility: Continuity In The Face Of Uncertainty

“In times of uncertainty, it’s important that we help our clients mitigate risk by offering flexibility, redundancy and resilience,” Ryan Frere, executive vice president, global payments at Flywire, told PYMNTS. See how the company is helping clients maintain business continuity amid global pandemic chaos in Black Swan, a special report exclusively from PYMNTS.

The following is an excerpt from Black Swan, contributed by Flywire Executive VP of Global Payments Ryan Frere.

The outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) is impacting every person, business and institution around the world today. This is true for the payments industry at large as well as for the vertical markets Flywire serves, including education, healthcare and travel.

Like all of us, our clients are trying to navigate the best path to support their employees, customers, partners and community — and, of course, to protect their bottom line. Our role at Flywire is to help them do this with minimal disruption to their business.

In times of crisis, our clients and payers expect business as usual. We feel navigating this uncertainty is best achieved by providing the high level of payments service they are used to getting from us. Redundancy, resilience and payment flexibility are inherent to Flywire’s payments network and platform. These capabilities are never more critical than in volatile times.

Here are a few examples of capabilities that enable our clients to manage unforeseen circumstances related to payments:

• Clearing options: Providing two or more local clearing options in each major region ensures redundancy if one bank partner is disrupted.
• Multiple methods: Offering 290+ payment methods to our clients’ customers enables them to use the option that best meets their needs. In some cases, it may be the only one available to that customer.
• Payment structure/plans: As customers face financial difficulties, the option for payments to be made in installments can be invaluable, especially in healthcare and education.
• Customer support: Our clients want their payers to have an outstanding and reassuring experience — especially in their most important moments. We can ensure that with 24/7 support in 10+ local languages, across email, phone and chat.
• Human touch: We make clients’ and payers’ lives easier with a range of digital-first self-service tools, but a human touch is critical in a crisis. It’s important to offer payers a choice.
• Security: Unfortunately, there are those who seek to profit from uncertainty. Our clients’ payers have been the subject of different phishing and fraud attempts. To guard against this, we have a range of security measures in place across different methods, so regardless of a payer’s choice of method, their money will be safeguarded.

In times of uncertainty, it’s important that we help our clients mitigate risk by offering flexibility, redundancy and resilience. At Flywire, we are focused on both the digital technology and expert resources needed to ensure that our clients’ customers’ most important payments go through. Our global footprint, operations and business continuity plans mitigate any potential disruptions to the flow of monies. And our relationships with the world’s top banking institutions and trusted regional and local payment partners are designed to assure continuity and to minimize risk in the face of market volatility.

Read more insights and tips in Black Swan from PYMNTS.