When you combine edtech and fintech, you are looking at specialized financial instruments catering to the growing educational sector. This is where a company like Edvance has decided to develop a market in Malaysia and Singapore. Founded to address the unique financial challenges faced by private and international educational institutions, Edvance offers innovative solutions that streamline billing processes and alleviate financial stress for parents. As the sector has seen a significant 52% growth rate over the past decade, the demand for efficient, technology-driven solutions in education has never been higher.
We wanted to find out more, so we got a chance to speak to Edward Ling, the CEO of Edvance about the challenges and growth potential of this industry. With a keen understanding of the pain points experienced by both parents and school administrators, he is aiming to provide comprehensive platform that includes multiple payment solutions and rewards programs for parents. For administrators, the platform offers an end-to-end billing and collection system that reduces manual errors and saves valuable time.
The high cost of international school fees in Malaysia and Singapore, ranging from US$1,809 to US$38,531 per annum, places considerable financial strain on parents. Edvance's solution, which allows flexible payment options, directly addresses this issue by enabling parents to pay fees in manageable instalments, thus easing their financial burden.
This is fresh of the company's successful participation in the EduSpaze accelerator programme. With plans to introduce their solutions to more schools across Southeast Asia, Edvance is poised to make a significant impact on the education sector.
In this interview, Edward discusses how Edvance differentiates its fintech solutions, alleviates financial stress for parents, and navigates the challenges of integrating new technology in schools.
How does Edvance differentiate its fintech solutions to specifically cater to the unique needs of private and international educational institutions?
The private and international education sector presents a viable opportunity for our fintech solution to strive in. Especially with a 52% growth rate within the past 10 years, the niche education landscape proves to be full of opportunities for edtech startups to offer their unique solutions. For us, we realised that one of the biggest challenges for both parents and administrators in international schools lies in providing top-notch services and experiences that justify the substantially higher school fees.
As such, Edvance comes with the unique solution of providing multiple payment solutions to parents and offering rewards to parents when they pay their children's school fees via our platform. For school administrators, Edvance offers an end-to-end billing and collection system so schools save time and minimise error that typically results from manual reconciliation.
We understand sending children to private school is expensive and we help schools take care of the financial wellness of their families
With the high cost of international school fees in Malaysia and Singapore, how do Edvance's payment solutions alleviate financial stress for parents?
In Malaysia and Singapore where international and private school fees can range from US$1,809 to US$38,531 per annum, it is unsurprisingly that financial stress remains the biggest challenge for parents. To help alleviate this financial stress, we provide parents the flexibility to pay school fees at a more comfortable pace. The traditional approach would call for parents to be charged in one big sum termly of quarterly. However, through our platform, parents now have the flexibility to choose an instalment that suits their needs, alleviating the financial stress.
What have been some of the most notable successes or challenges faced by Edvance in implementing its fee management solutions in Southeast Asian schools?
We found that when clients integrated our solution into their existing fee payment model, we were able to improve their cash flow by over 80%! That's because, despite the advancement in technology, many schools still handle their financial matters manually which often results in delayed fee payment and financial decision-making. Furthermore, the complex tech infrastructure that exists within these schools makes it difficult for them to adopt new solution. Nonetheless, Edvance presents a financial solution that is simple to adopt without the need for any technological implementation. By collaborating with major payment partners, Edvance offers a solution that creates a seamless experience for end-to-end billing and payments, helping schools better manage their school fee payment process.
How does Edvance's participation in the EduSpaze accelerator programme align with its long-term goals and vision for the education sector?
One of our major goals is to share our products and services with more schools, not just in Malaysia but across the Southeast Asia region. We are immensely thankful and excited to be part of the renowned EduSpaze accelerator programme as the vast network that they've established with global partners would help us validate our solutions that they are applicable beyond Malaysia and we are excited to introduce our offerings to more countries later this year.
Could you share a specific case study or example where Edvance's solutions significantly improved the fee collection and payment processes for a school?
Many private and international schools in Malaysia have complex tuition fees and discount structures, making billing a time-consuming process which could result in a lot of back and forth with the parents. This would eventually cause delays in tuition fee collection from the school. Edvance system simplifies the whole process, making it seamless for schools to communicate the invoices to parents. We also send fee reminders via WhatsApp so parents do not miss out on the payment due date.
This has helped our clients improve their cash flow by more than 80%.
Given the significant growth in international school enrollments in Southeast Asia, what key trends do you foresee shaping the future of edtech solutions in this region?
The adoption of technology in the education sector is inevitable as students in Generation Alpha grow up immersed in it. Technology will play a significant role in teaching, enabling teachers to personalize their methods and gradually taking over routine tasks such as billing, timetable scheduling and other backend operations.
There are many edtech solutions out there designed to help improve overall teaching quality. In a world where technology and AI are more common in the workplace, educators have to adopt some of these tools in their teaching. It is imperative that we equip our children to be ready for the future and our aim is to ensure that our financing solutions help more students access quality education
What's next for Edvance?
Currently, we've only been in the beta mode offering our services to a selected group of schools so we are able to fine-tune our products and services offered. The goal really was to ensure that our products and services were developed well enough to address the unique needs of international schools. Now that our product and services have undergone intense experimenting and trial runs, we are especially excited to shift our focus on sharing Edvance with a wider audience. For now, we plan to roll out our offerings to more private and international schools across Malaysia and eventually will look at expanding to a second country within the Southeast Asia region.
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