INTERNATIONAL PAYMENT SERVICES

Tender description

The University currently uses a specialist provider to make international payments originating from Sterling. Approximately 670 payments are made annually. Of these, some 15% are euro either through the specialist provider or the University's EUR bank A/C, 16% are US Dollar, 52% Sterling and 17% for all other currencies. Each beneficiary's payment details are emailed to the provider who do money laundering & criminal record checks against each beneficiary, set them up on their system & email confirmation that they're set up. Approved invoices and payment requisitions are received in PDF format, and they are manually input into the providers online platform. 2 main types of payments are required. 1. Payments in a designated currency. 2. payments in a designated currency at a set GBP value. When raising the payment, the beneficiary needs to be able to be selected without having to input all their details for each payment. Authorisation is required on the online platform from the authorised signatories within Finance. When the approver logs in a list of payments to be made should be available with checkboxes so approvals can be done together as well as the option to drill down into the payment to approve. When the payments are released a remittance advice is emailed to the beneficiary by the provider. Payment to the Provider is taken for each payment made by Direct Debit. The Direct Debit must be per payment so the bank transactions can be reconciled to the overseas payments. A manual process follows to update the Ledger. The wire confirmations are downloaded and loaded onto the ledger & are accounted for in GBP once the payment has been sent. The original currency of the transaction is not recorded on the ledger. During the period of the appointment the University expects to place the business that is the subject of this tender with the Appointee, but it reserves the right to place a limited proportion of its business with other providers (e.g., due to the beneficiary country or payment currency). The University would not expect to place such business without first consulting the Appointee and giving the Appointee the opportunity to undertake the business.