Global banking giant HSBC has launched an international education payment service, aimed at Chinese students studying abroad, enabling them to pay tuition fees in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong.
The bank is the first foreign lender to offer such a service to technology savvy users in mainland China. China is the largest source of international students for higher education institutions around the world. These younger consumers are extremely technology savvy, which drives demand for innovative digital financial services, including areas such as overseas studies.
Overseas students or their families can use the HSBC China mobile app, or WeChat banking, to exchange the yuan into either the US dollar, the British pound, the Canadian dollar, the Australian dollar or the Hong Kong dollar to pay their tuition fees. This will save them a visit to a bank branch or the filling in of paper applications to make payments overseas.
Overseas Chinese students spend more than 380 billion yuan (US$60.44 billion) each year, with 80 per cent of this amount going towards tuition fees and daily expenses, according to a report by UnionPay International last year.