+200.000
Payments processed per year
6
Systems and services already integrated
Just over a decade ago, collecting tuition fees at the University of Coimbra involved using a modem, making a phone call to SIBS and having the IT team manually process Multibanco reference files. Today, the university handles over 200,000 payments a year with no human intervention, thanks to the Public Administration Payments Platform (PPAP), which is managed by the Agency for Technological Reform of the State (ARTE).
The University of Coimbra's story is the first success story to be published on digitalGOV, marking the start of a series that will share first-hand accounts from public bodies that have adopted technological solutions to accelerate the digital transformation of their services.
From modems to web services
The university joined PPAP in 2013, at a time when connecting systems across different organisations via web services was still uncommon in Portugal. Although remote tuition payments were already possible, the process was slow and manual. Card payments went through PayPal, which was often declined in some countries, leaving many international students without a Portuguese bank account with no easy way to pay.
'We had the modem; we had to phone SIBS; we had to collect the reference files and process them manually. It was pretty good for its time, but it was clearly a lot more work than it is today,' recalls Jorge China from the university's IT team.
With PPAP, generating and receiving Multibanco references became fully automated, and the platform soon began accepting credit card payments too.
This was an integration that grew far beyond tuition fees
The PPAP integration was natively built into NONIO, the academic management system developed in-house by the university and now used by other higher education institutions. This made it easier for these institutions to adopt the platform, too. Later, when a new ERP was introduced, the team developed an in-house middleware layer that enabled the platform to be connected to new areas much more quickly.
PPAP now powers several other university systems and services, including tourism, university stadium facility bookings, parking, and events. Around 90% of payments are made via Multibanco reference, while the remaining 10% are made by credit card. The recent move to version 2 of the platform has simplified the process even further, with a single screen where users can select their preferred payment method.
Fewer manual processes, better service
The most immediate benefit was eliminating the need for manual work tied to Multibanco references. However, the improvements didn't stop there. Paid certificates and documents are now issued as soon as payment is confirmed, and the university has a consolidated view of tuition fees and other revenue.
'The quality of service we provide gives the University of Coimbra a new image. With all the competition in higher education today, that's extremely important,' says Nelson Costa.
When asked to sum up PPAP's impact in one word, the team doesn't hesitate: 'Simplification'.
The university is now preparing to extend the platform to include an online shop for university merchandise.
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