Flywire, a global payments enablement and software company, has expanded its strategic partnership with TenPay Global, Tencent’s cross-border payment platform. The collaboration extends the availability of Weixin Pay (WeChat Pay) as a payment option for Chinese students and their families paying tuition fees to universities in South Korea and Malaysia.
The move is designed to digitise high-value education payments across two of Asia’s most dynamic academic corridors, providing a streamlined, localised experience for students while improving operational efficiency for educational institutions.
Catering to the shift in Asian student mobility
The expanded partnership comes at a time when student mobility within Asia is accelerating. Driven by factors such as geographical proximity, cultural affinity, and affordability, an increasing number of Chinese students are choosing to pursue their higher education closer to home rather than travelling to traditional Western destinations.
Data cited by Flywire highlights this exponential growth. Chinese student enrollment in Malaysia has increased fivefold from 2019, reaching over 47,000 students in 2024. Similarly, South Korea continues to see a steady rise in inbound students from China, hosting approximately 73,500 in 2024.
Calvin Chen, vice president of payments at Flywire, commented on the strategy behind the expansion: “As Chinese students increasingly choose to pursue studies closer to home, Flywire is executing a strategy to digitize high-value payments across these critical, high-growth corridors.
“By deepening our collaboration with TenPay Global and connecting Weixin Pay directly within the payment journey for Chinese students bound for South Korea and Malaysia, we are providing the seamless, localized experience that Chinese students demand while helping our institutional clients capture this substantial new payment volume efficiently.”
Removing friction from cross-border tuition payments
For Chinese families, paying international tuition fees has traditionally been a complex process fraught with friction, often involving complicated bank transfers, prolonged processing times, and a lack of transparency regarding foreign exchange rates.
Through this direct partnership, Flywire and TenPay Global aim to remove these barriers. Students and their families can now initiate and complete tuition payments in Renminbi (RMB) directly via their Weixin (or WeChat) app—a platform that is ubiquitous in Chinese daily life. This familiarity provides a level of trust and convenience that traditional payment methods often lack.
For universities in South Korea and Malaysia, the integration offers significant administrative benefits. By automating the reconciliation process and ensuring they receive the full amount owed in their local currency, institutions can improve their cash flow and reduce the workload on their finance teams.
A seamless approach to digital payments
TenPay Global, which connects the Weixin ecosystem with global partners, views the collaboration as a way to bring world-class reliability to the education sector.
“We are committed to enhancing the experience for our users, and this expansion with Flywire allows us to provide the familiar convenience of using Weixin Pay for Chinese students in these popular regional markets,” said Wenhui Yang, chief executive officer of TenPay Global (Singapore). “For Chinese students studying in South Korea and Malaysia, paying their tuition becomes easy and reliable, further validating our seamless approach to cross-border payments.”
The partnership underscores Flywire’s ongoing commitment to product and payment innovation, extending its footprint in the growing education markets of Asia. By embedding vertical-specific software into the workflows of its clients, Flywire continues to optimise the payment experience for millions of students worldwide.