Flywire (NASDAQ:FLYW) CEO Mike Massaro said the payments company is seeing benefits from a strategic review that focused on streamlining operations, improving data and systems, and reinvesting in priority areas.
Speaking in a fireside chat with Tien-Tsin Huang, Payments and IT Services Analyst at JPMorgan, Massaro said Flywire responded to changes in some of its end markets with a “three-pronged approach” that included organizational streamlining, optimization across geographies and products, and reinvestment in selected regions, products and teams.
Complex Payments Remain Core to Flywire’s Strategy
Massaro said Flywire’s businesses in education, travel, healthcare and B2B payments are tied together by a focus on complex payment flows. He said the company targets clients with challenging billing processes, international payment needs or industry-specific systems of record.
“We like to run in towards complexity as a team,” Massaro said, adding that Flywire uses industry-focused software along with a shared payments platform and infrastructure.
He cited wins with educational institutions such as Cornell and Penn State, as well as Cleveland Clinic in healthcare, as examples of the types of complex payment problems Flywire aims to solve.
Travel Business Focused on Hospitality Expansion
Massaro said Flywire’s travel business has two main parts: a hospitality business that is currently “heavily U.S.-centric” and a luxury and experiential travel business. He said the two are about equal in size and both are growing well within Flywire.
The hospitality business includes Sertifi, which Flywire acquired to expand into hotel back-office workflows such as documentation, signatures and payment processing for events including weddings, conferences and corporate gatherings. Massaro said the company is preparing for an international launch of the hospitality product from the end of this year into next year.
He said Sertifi is ahead of schedule on monetizing about $3 billion of payments that had not previously been monetized. Flywire acquired roughly 20,000 hotel locations through Sertifi, mostly in the United States, and has spent the past year integrating the product with Flywire payments and preparing it for global use.
On the luxury and experiential side, Massaro said Flywire has opportunities to expand by geography, subsector and software. He pointed to Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as areas where the company has added go-to-market teams, and cited specialized travel categories such as ocean experiences, golf and cycling.
Massaro said Flywire has not seen an impact yet from Middle East conflict on its travel business, though the company is monitoring international travel flows and fuel-related pressures. He said the Middle East could eventually become a growth region for Flywire in education and travel B2B payments, but it is not a current focus for luxury experiential expansion given the conflict.
Education Business Navigates Visa Headwinds
In education, Massaro said Flywire has taken a cautious approach to visa-related assumptions in its guidance. He said the company is assuming flat visa issuance in the U.K. and Canada, and that a 30% drop in U.S. visas is already baked into the company’s guide.
Despite those headwinds, Massaro said Flywire has continued to gain share and grow in education markets. He attributed that performance to the company’s land-and-expand strategy, including deployment of more software to existing clients.
A key priority is Flywire’s Student Financials Solution, or SFS, which Massaro described as a student account portal and billing and payment suite that can handle domestic and international tuition payments, one-time payments and payment plans.
Massaro said SFS is only about 10% penetrated across Flywire’s existing education customers, leaving significant cross-sell opportunity. He said Flywire is currently focused on the top four education geographies, but sees demand in many additional countries where universities still rely on PDF invoices and email-based billing processes.
Healthcare Momentum Includes Large Logo Wins
Massaro said Flywire’s healthcare team has made progress in a complex market that typically has lower growth. He highlighted Cleveland Clinic, Endeavor, Cook County and Jackson Health as significant wins.
Flywire is finishing its Cleveland Clinic implementation and is seeing payment volume ramp, Massaro said. He noted that this has contributed to a mix shift in gross margin discussed by the company.
Massaro said there are only so many large hospital systems comparable to Cleveland Clinic, but Flywire will continue pursuing large healthcare deals. He said the business is on a better growth trajectory than it was last year.
AI and Stablecoins Seen as Opportunities
Asked whether artificial intelligence could threaten Flywire’s business, Massaro said the company must continue to innovate but argued that Flywire’s regulated global payments infrastructure, embedded industry-specific software, multi-year customer agreements and subject-matter expertise create barriers to disruption.
He said Flywire is using AI internally to improve product and engineering workflows, triage support tickets and increase efficiency. Massaro said the company has seen a 40% reduction in payer support tickets as work has shifted from manual queues to automated agentic processes.
On stablecoins, Massaro said Flywire is evaluating the technology across three areas: acceptance, internal money movement and payout or settlement. He said a stablecoin pilot announced several quarters ago is active across more than 1,000 clients.
Massaro said stablecoin volume remains small relative to Flywire’s total payment volume, but economics so far have been on par with bank transfer. He said demand from Flywire’s large enterprise clients to settle in stablecoins is not yet significant.
However, Massaro said stablecoins could help Flywire move money more efficiently when traditional currency markets are closed, potentially improving speed or economics in certain situations.
Looking broadly at the business, Massaro said Flywire started the year strongly, has continued to gain share and is becoming more efficient. He said the company expanded EBITDA margin by 300 basis points last year and has guided for 275 basis points of expansion this year, while continuing to invest in systems, data and AI to support future scale.
About Flywire (NASDAQ:FLYW)
Flywire Corp (NASDAQ: FLYW) is a global payments enablement and software company that specializes in facilitating complex cross-border transactions. Its cloud-based platform streamlines receivables and payer workflows across key verticals including education, healthcare, travel and hospitality, and commercial services. Flywire’s technology integrates with institutional systems to automate payment posting, reconciliation and reporting, aiming to improve the payer experience and accelerate cash flow for its clients.
Founded in 2009 by entrepreneur Iker Marcaide as peerTransfer, the company rebranded as Flywire in 2015.
