With 70,000 students from more than 130 countries across three campuses, the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has a particularly complex payment landscape. The diversity and volume of payments UNSW processes means that a consistent and consolidated view of all transactions is a business imperative.
UNSW has been using Xetta for more than 20 years. Initially, the platform was purely utilised as a front-end cashiering system. However, as the university has grown and payments have evolved, Xetta has become the lynchpin of all payment processes and workflows at UNSW.
We look to funnel all payments through Xetta. It helps us to contain and control the payment process across our operations and makes it much easier for our accounts receivable team to manage bank reconciliation daily.
Greg Kasch, Manager of Financial Systems & Strategy at UNSW.
While the majority of payments come through Xetta, UNSW uses a range of solutions that reflect the unique and dynamic nature of university operations. For aspects like clinics and medical services, some centres utilise an online checkout that integrates directly with Xetta, while others rely on Xetta as a point-of-sale solution for in-person payments.
Sometimes, a dedicated clinical management system with an EFTPOS machine with HICAPS capability will create an exception. However, that receipting file can be uploaded to Xetta to provide a consolidated view of payments, which then flows through to the university’s ERP, PeopleSoft.
Empowering UNSW to meet PCI-DSS requirements
In 2022, UNSW began collecting application fees, student deposits and tuition fees via a Xetta-powered checkout linked to their student system.
Connecting the student system with Xetta solved two significant challenges for the university. Firstly, the finance team was concerned that the previous embedded payment gateway was becoming obsolete. It didn’t support tokenisation, and key stakeholders didn’t feel it reflected modern banking protocols, particularly given the prevalence of cybercrime.
Meeting PCI-DSS requirements was another key reason for making this change: “Because we were hosting a payment gateway within our student system, the entire student system – and the many networks attached to it – needed to comply with PCI-DSS. We recognised that this was a major stumbling block as it would be nearly impossible for the university to meet this expanded scope for PCI-DSS compliance,” says Greg.
By removing the payment gateway from the student system and instead using a seamless integration with Xetta to facilitate payments, UNSW was able to reduce its PCI scope dramatically while ensuring these payments met PCI-DSS requirements.
Optimising payments with specialist managed services
UNSW takes advantage of Xetta’s managed services offering, with the Nelnet team taking care of day-to-day platform management for the university. Working as an extension of UNSW’s finance and IT teams, Nelnet’s payments specialists look after aspects including system administration, upgrade management, and more.
“The managed services offering has helped UNSW to get more value from Xetta. For example, we were initially reluctant to encourage different areas to use the platform’s conferencing capability because the finance team isn’t resourced to support the set-up of hundreds of events across the university. Today, the Nelnet team supports us to facilitate the configuration of all conferences as required,” says Greg.
UNSW is now looking at opportunities to promote Xetta to other areas of the university to encourage its use across all campuses and departments.
“We want Xetta to be the go-to for collecting payments at UNSW, so there’s an education and promotion piece to ensure it’s front of mind. Often, different areas of the university will start using new software or a new payment gateway, unaware that there’s a powerful tool at their fingertips.
“Our vision is for stakeholders across UNSW to reach out to finance and IT when they’re thinking about collecting payments. In most instances, they won’t need to reinvent the wheel, as Xetta can meet their needs. In the event that specific software is required, we want to ensure that it integrates with Xetta so that we continue to enjoy a consolidated view of payments across the entire university,” said Greg.
With the Nelnet team taking care of configuration and implementation, UNSW’s finance and IT teams are spending less time on operational tasks, freeing them up to focus on strategic priorities such as driving growth.
