Business Types – Membership Organisations

Background:
Payment Challenges: Membership Organisation’s have a need to collect fees for a number of reasons, including Membership, exam/ tuition/course fees. Their Finance and Operational areas are likely to also to have to make domestic and international payments on a regular basis. Attracting new Members is key to an organisation’s growth, so making the registration and payment process efficient and easy is important. The hidden cost of FX in payment sent or received from overseas may not be well understood.

Why is this important to businesses and corporates?

New payment types and solutions are emerging on a regular basis so how does a Membership Organisation decide which are right for their requirements? Payment/ Collection types an Organisation should be considering:
• Direct Debits for regular payments
• Card (Visa, MasterCard, AmEx and local schemes), especially for those countries with high Debit Card usage online
• Inward Bank Transfer, using QR solutions for reconciliation, for exam fees can often fit well as a card replacement
• Fintech solutions for cross border payments, especially where a number of payments originate to/ from the same currency

Questions a business need to consider include:
• Are Members based just in the same country or in a number of countries?
• For all payment types how efficient is the processing and reconciliation?
• Is automatic renewal of Members annually important to retain the Member?
• Do Members pay for membership, services and fees throughout the year?
• How efficient and costly is it to send/ receive payments overseas?
• Are Direct Debits or recurring Card payments best for your organisation?
• If you accept payment by Card, do you have an attractive rate and service from your provider? Any issues with Cards issued in overseas?