chevron chevron chevron “Before, we would manually be chasing every failed payment in the same way. With GoCardless, we can avoid chasing and having those awkward conversations when we don’t need to – this lightens the workload for our collections team too.” Ioannis Georgiou Co-Founder, Lendwise KEY BENEFITS Automated process, seamless payment experience for customers. Company name Lendwise Services Higher education finance Number of employees 15 Lendwise brings together students and investors into one, peer to peer, lending platform providing accessible funding for higher education. The platform is built with a commitment to giving both borrowers and lenders a superior service, at a fair rate to ultimately help them achieve their goals. Since launching in 2018, Lendwise has focussed on optimising operational aspects of the business to make access to finance as simple as possible for it’s majority millennial customer base. This includes the business’ approach to collecting the loan repayments. Read on to find out more from Co-Founder Ioannis Georgiou. A seamless payment experience Lendwise has used GoCardless since launching in 2018. When Ioannis and his two business partners set up the company, they knew that choosing the right payment method was key: We wanted a payment provider that meant once a customer was set up, it didn’t require any more action from them. We wanted to make it as simple as possible for people to make their repayments,” says Ioannis. The pull based nature of Direct Debit makes it efficient for recurring loan repayments because the payments are taken automatically from the customers account, each time a payment is due. Ioannis looked at various Direct Debit providers in the UK and decided on GoCardless, initially getting set up via the online dashboard, before building an integration with the API. Ioannis explains: “We needed something reliable that could support us as we grow. Thinking ahead, we plan on expanding into other territories, so GoCardless’ international offering was a key factor too.” The Lendwise team was able to quickly get up and running with the API and used the Sandbox environment to fully test the system before going live. “The online documentation was really clear, even for me as someone who isn’t a developer. If we needed them, the support team was always on hand as well.” Building customer relationships With a student customer base, Lendwise needed something flexible to cover the occasions when payments failed due to insufficient funds. Although the failure rate associated with Direct Debit is already low, Lendwise has been using GoCardless' Intelligent Retries feature to make repaying the loans even easier and improve customer relationships. The feature automatically retries failed payments up to three times, using smart technology to determine when the payment is most likely to be successful. For Lendwise, this has allowed the collections team to adapt the payment journey based on customers who intended to pay, and those who didn’t. Ioannis explains: The customer is notified about the retry so it gives them time to put money in their account. After the automatic retries, we know we will have collected payment from anyone that was intending to pay.” For those with intent to pay, this distinction is key because it means that the team can avoid chasing the payment, causing unnecessary friction in the relationship: “Before, we would manually be chasing every failed payment in the same way. With GoCardless, we can avoid chasing and having those awkward conversations when we don’t need to – this lightens the workload for our collections team too.” Looking forward 100% of Lendwise’ customers pay through GoCardless, and Ioannis is looking forward to continuing the partnership as the company grows: “We are getting increased interest from foreign students, who will be looking to repay in their home currency after their studies. Being able to use GoCardless in these new regions will help us to expand more quickly.” ←Read more stories like Lendwise Start your GoCardless story today Join the 50,000 businesses already using GoCardless Sign up nowContact sales Connect with us linkedin twitter facebook youtube Solutions Invoice payments Recurring payments Enterprise Partner integrations API Pricing Help & resources Customer Hub Guides Security FAQ IDC Business Value white paper API documentation Customer offers About GoCardless About us Careers Blog Press Privacy Legal Cookies Partner with us Modern Slavery Statement Contact us Sales Contact sales +44 20 8338 9539 Support Request support +44 20 8338 9540 Seen 'GoCardless LTD' on your bank statement? Learn more GoCardless Ltd., Sutton Yard, 65 Goswell Road, London, EC1V 7EN, United Kingdom GoCardless (company registration number 07495895) is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Services Regulations 2017, registration number 597190, for the provision of payment services. GoCardless SAS, 23-25 Avenue Mac-Mahon, Paris, 75017, France GoCardless SAS, an affiliate of GoCardless Ltd (company registration number 834 422 180, R.C.S. PARIS), is authorised by the ACPR (French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority), Bank Code (CIB) 17118, for the provision of payment services. Currently viewingUnited Kingdom