Trust Center

A partner school sends an invoice for a student you've approved for the benefit. Your team reviews that invoice against your own policy and approves it—all negotiated terms and tuition policy conditions are integrated. Only then is an ACH debit initiated from the bank account you linked, and the school is paid. Nothing moves until your team says so.

Payments are processed through Stripe. EFFA does not store full bank account numbers and does not hold your funds. We store only the references needed to run the transaction—Stripe identifiers and the last four digits of your account. Stripe handles all sensitive banking details.

When your finance lead links your bank account, they authorize ACH debits limited exclusively to invoices your team has already approved. That authorization is revocable at any time by contacting support@effa.io.

After your approval, ACH confirmation and fund movement typically take 4–6 business days, depending on weekends, holidays, bank posting, and standard ACH timing. We don't promise an exact arrival date because the banking rails don't.

Nothing. EFFA does not charge employers any fee under its current model. EFFA charges a small transaction fee to the participating schools—comparable to credit card processing fees. Employers are free, always.

EFFA does not intentionally collect or store Social Security numbers or full bank account numbers. Banking details are handled entirely by Stripe; we keep only Stripe identifiers and the last four digits of an account for audit and display purposes. We're deliberate with the word "intentionally": some product fields are free text and reviewers can upload documents, so we can't claim it's technically impossible for a user to type or attach sensitive data. But we don't request it, design for it, or store it in structured fields.

EFFA runs on established cloud infrastructure. The vendors handling production data on our behalf are listed below. Click any name to learn more about their security programs.

Yes. EFFA is hosted on established cloud infrastructure whose security and compliance programs include SOC reporting. We can provide relevant vendor trust documentation, including SOC reports where available, to reviewers who need them.

Yes. EFFA completed a HECVAT questionnaire on June 1, 2026. We're glad to share it with qualified security and procurement reviewers under NDA. Reach us at support@effa.io.

EFFA is designed to support schools that use service providers for employer-sponsored billing. Schools decide how they satisfy their FERPA obligations, including whether EFFA fits within their 'school official' framework for a given engagement. EFFA does not make that determination on a school's behalf, but we can walk your school, legal, or compliance team through the data we receive, how it is used, and how the workflow is structured.

EFFA supports employer education-assistance workflows, but we do not determine tax treatment. Whether a payment qualifies under IRC §127 depends on the employer's own education-assistance plan and tax position. We do not represent that any payment is automatically tax-free or provide tax advice. We can provide the transaction records your finance, benefits, or tax team needs to make that determination.

When an authorized finance user links a bank account, they authorize ACH debits only for invoices your team has approved. EFFA does not initiate payment for unapproved invoices. The authorization can be revoked for future debits by contacting your EFFA contact or support@effa.io. The exact authorization language is shown during bank linking and recorded with the authorization. Payments are processed through Stripe; EFFA does not store full bank account numbers or hold employer funds.

EFFA's Terms of Service cover employer, school, and user workflows and are accepted online when an account is created. There is usually no separate signing step. If your team has specific legal, security, or procurement requirements, we're glad to provide the right materials for review. Reach out to your EFFA contact or support@effa.io and we'll work through it with you directly.