Novatti Hits $33.6M in Transactions as Alipay Launches Inside UNSW Portal
Novatti hits milestone as Alipay goes live inside UNSW’s student portal
Novatti Group Limited (ASX: NOV) has announced a key milestone from its Novatti Alipay UNSW education integration, with the service generating $33.6 million in Gross Transaction Value (GTV) and $0.5 million in revenue to 30 April 2026. Contracted with UNSW in August 2025 and launched in October 2025 in collaboration with Xetta, UNSW’s enterprise management platform, the service completed operational delivery and volume testing through the first trimester of 2026, with initial uptake exceeding expectations. UNSW is the first Australian university to go live on the Novatti-Xetta Asian wallet integration.
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How the integration works — and why it matters for students
Solving a real pain point for Chinese families
Traditional international bank transfers present a significant friction point for Chinese students and families managing Australian tuition payments from overseas. The process is typically cumbersome, lacks transparency, and requires the use of international wire transfer providers, which adds cost and complexity.
Novatti’s Acquiring platform, integrated with Xetta, addresses this directly. Students can pay tuition and related university fees within the MyUNSW Student Portal using Alipay, one of China’s most widely used digital payment platforms, in Chinese Yuan. Funds then settle to UNSW in Australian dollars through regulated cross-border payment acceptance and settlement capabilities.
The key benefits for Chinese students and families include:
- Payments made in local currency (Chinese Yuan) without requiring international wire transfer providers
- Use of a trusted, familiar domestic platform (Alipay) with established user confidence
- Convenience of remote payment management, with greater transparency and payment certainty
The scale of the opportunity
The deployment sits within a market with considerable underlying scale. Key metrics from the announcement include:
- UNSW has more than 70,000 total students enrolled, including approximately 27,700 international students
- More than 30 additional tertiary institutions utilise Xetta, all of which can accept Novatti’s Asian wallet payment capabilities
- According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Chinese student enrolments generated approximately $12.7 billion in economic activity in FY25 through tuition fees, accommodation, food, transport, and retail
The Xetta distribution network means Novatti’s service is potentially available to 80% of Australian universities without requiring new platform integrations.
Novatti CEO, Mark Healy
“The integration at UNSW demonstrates the momentum we are building within our payment acceptance business and highlights the scalability of our education payments strategy. International education is a significant economic sector for Australia, and payment experience has become an increasingly important component of the student journey. By enabling trusted Asian wallet payment options within existing university and other tertiary education systems, Novatti is helping these institutions improve accessibility for students while generating growing recurring transaction volumes.”
Education as a growth vertical — the strategic picture
Acquiring as a high-margin, recurring revenue engine
The UNSW deployment is part of Novatti’s broader pivot-to-growth strategy, which is focused on scaling higher-margin, recurring revenue payment infrastructure businesses. Merchant acquiring, in particular, embeds Novatti’s regulated payment capabilities into enterprise ecosystems where transaction volumes can scale efficiently through existing distribution networks and software integrations, rather than through costly new customer acquisition.
The company’s strategy is centred on mid-market and enterprise partners such as Xetta, where one integration can unlock access to a large number of end institutions. It is worth noting that revenue remains contingent upon extended uptake of the service, a qualifier the company has explicitly preserved in its announcement.
What’s next — 30+ institutions in the pipeline
UNSW is currently the only live institution on the Novatti-Xetta Asian wallet integration, but the pipeline is material. More than 30 additional Xetta-connected tertiary institutions represent the immediate expansion opportunity, each capable of accepting Novatti’s Asian wallet payment capabilities without a new platform build.
Novatti has indicated it intends to build on the UNSW base for additional university students across the network. The scalability of this model is a defining feature: a single enterprise integration with Xetta provides distribution access to a substantial proportion of the Australian tertiary sector.
| Metric | Detail |
|---|---|
| Integration launch | October 2025 |
| Revenue to 30 April 2026 | $0.5 million |
| GTV to 30 April 2026 | $33.6 million |
| UNSW international students | ~27,700 |
| Xetta-connected institutions | 30+ |
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Why this milestone moves the needle for NOV investors
The UNSW deployment serves as a proof of concept for a scalable, recurring-revenue model in a sector underpinned by structural demand. Initial GTV and uptake figures have exceeded the company’s own expectations, which adds credibility to the commercial thesis ahead of wider rollout.
The capital-efficiency angle is worth noting. Rather than building bespoke integrations for each institution, Novatti is leveraging its existing relationship with Xetta to access a network of 30+ pipeline institutions. Each of those institutions carries its own international student cohort, meaning GTV growth potential does not require proportional increases in integration costs or sales effort.
The broader sector context reinforces the long-term scale. The $12.7 billion annual economic footprint generated by Chinese student enrolments in Australia, as measured by the ABS, reflects the structural weight of this market. For Novatti, education is now an identified key growth vertical, and the UNSW milestone represents the first live data point in what the company is positioning as a multi-institution, recurring-revenue opportunity.
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