Students Staff

University online payments by wire

Frequently asked questions

What is a PRID?

This is your own unique University reference number - it takes the form of 5 letters, always in CAPITALS, followed by 5 numbers, e.g. SMITH12345. It is displayed on all student registration cards and all accommodation invoices.

New undergraduates will be notified of their PRID in a "Personal Details Form", which is sent by the Undergraduate School mid-August onwards.

Security of the Essex web pages

As no credit/debit card information is used, security is not an issue with this system as no bank or card details are required to generate a deal. The deal document generated does not contain the student's name, PRID or date of birth.

What are the advantages of the system?

The advantages of using this system are:

  • It is cheaper than paying by credit card or by standard bank transfer from one currency to another
  • It provides a guaranteed exchange rate. A payment transfer "deal" is generated, valid for 72 hours, which is printed out and taken to your own local bank. As the payment is in your local currency, there are no additional bank transfer charges
  • The full payment amount will be received by the University of Essex
  • The platform is translated in 8 languages: French, Korean, Indonesian, English, Spanish, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese and Hindi. Japanese will be available soon.

Troubleshooting

Once on the platform, use the back button on the bottom page and not the back button in your browser.

When is the payment made?

All deals made via the pay by wire system will not be updated on our system until the payment has been made at the local bank, at which point the transfer from Convera to the University takes place immediately. The creation of a "deal", valid for 72 hours, does not constitute payment.

Foreign language support

The platform is translated in 8 languages: French, Korean, Indonesian, English, Spanish, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese and Hindi. Japanese will be available soon.

To translate text from these pages from English into a range of other languages, try Google's language tools.

Feedback

We are always looking at how the web payment system could be improved - as a user of this system, we would welcome any feedback you wish to make concerning the web payment pages. If you have any comments or suggestions, please email income@essex.ac.uk.

Contacts

If you have any questions about the payment of invoices, please contact income@essex.ac.uk. If you have any technical queries please contact Convera.