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~ APEXX ~

WHY WE ARE

REVOLUTIONISING

THE SCHOOL FEE

PAYMENT PROCESS?

Text: Bertie Simpson, Founder and CEO of Esenda // Photos: Esenda

Independent schools in the UK are some of the oldest and most prestigious institutions in
the country. Their ability to adapt to the times and modernise have been key to their survival,
and no greater test of this has been the COVID-19 pandemic. However, when it comes to the
menial but critical process of school fee payments, there is a long way to go.

here are over 2,500 independent schools in parties in the school fee payment process.
the UK taking payments from all over the
Tglobe, many of which continue to expend The result is an online platform that is smart and secure and
unnecessary time and resources reconciling fees through which school bursars and fee-paying parents can
through outdated payment systems. Finance teams at manage all of their payments through one central system,
independent schools typically spend hours and hours anything from a music lesson, ski trip or annual tuition fees.
managing the laborious task of fee collections. They Our automated fee collection and reconciliation service
are often across fragmented systems and paper-based, eliminates much of the manual workload associated with
which is remarkable in 2021. Many of them don’t these processes, and schools can also save up to 80% on
accept payments in foreign currencies, which, again, payment fees.
is astonishing when you consider how many students
are international. We have also integrated a large variety of payment methods
and currencies that give parents the ability to pay fees
Current processes also require large amounts of inefficient in 37 currencies from all over the world within a secure
manual intervention and are often unsecured. The recent environment. Furthermore, parents are kept up to date on
rapid increase in school fee targeted cyber-crime has put their transactions with live notifications and reminders,
payment fraud prevention at the top of the agenda. I’ve even eliminating the need for them to be chased for payment.
heard of shocking instances of schools losing hundreds of
thousands of fees by putting their bank details into their A critical factor in our security and ability to accept payments
unsecured home website (which was, of course, easily hacked from all over the world is our integration of APEXX Global’s
and changed). payment infrastructure. APEXX Global is a partner-agnostic
global payments platform that combines acquirers, gateways,
Finally, current systems are also prone to incurring large and shopping carts and Alternative Payments Methods into a
unnecessary transaction fees for both the schools and fee- single marketplace. Having APEXX’s infrastructure as part of
payers. All things told, the current school fee payment system our platform means that schools and fee-paying parents can
is ripe for change. reduce unnecessary costs and increase the efficiency of their
school fee payments. ••
And so, when I founded Esenda, I had a very simple mission.
I wanted to create a safe, simple, online payment system that
dramatically increased efficiency and reduced costs for all

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