Customers from 8 major banks can now set up GIRO payments online within minutes

CUSTOMERS from 8 major banks in Singapore are now able to set up recurring bill payments in real time with 13 organisations, via a new nationwide electronic GIRO (eGIRO) service that fully digitalises the current paper-based process.

In what typically takes 3 to 4 weeks to complete, the GIRO application turnaround time has been reduced to "mere minutes" for a consumer and less than 48 hours for a corporate entity with approver, said the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) in a statement on Monday (Nov 8).

It will also cut the consumption of paper-based documentation by around 2 million sheets per year, minimising errors due to human intervention.

In its initial phase, the participating banks for eGIRO are DBS/POSB, OCBC, UOB, HSBC, Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Maybank and Standard Chartered.

The 13 pilot billing organisations span across five different business segments including public services, insurance, wealth management, and payment services.

They comprise the CPF Board, HDB, GrabPay, Singtel Dash, FWD Insurance, Etiqa Insurance, Singlife, iFast Corporation, YouTrip, Singapore E-Business, Bank of China credit cards, ICBC credit cards, and Diner's Club.

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Consumers can create an eGIRO instruction via the billing organisation's website and specify their designated bank for the payment through eGIRO; there is no charge for the service.

There are also stringent security measures in place to safeguard personal data that passes through eGIRO.

Users' data are encrypted and the authentication and authorisation process are underpinned by the 2FA (two-factor authentication) and transaction signing of participating banks, said ABS.

On average, about 1 million GIRO applications are processed per year.

This number is expected to rise amid the convenience and transparency of the new eGIRO service, as well as the inclusion of more organisations in subsequent phases.

"(Digitalising the process) engenders trust in the entire GIRO system because you're able to set up and know the status almost instantaneously. We think it's going to promote more usage by individuals and also for billing organisations to be able to find new use cases to promote GIRO collections rather than traditional paper forms," said Melvyn Low, OCBC head of global transaction banking, at a media briefing.

DBS group head of product management Sriram Muthukrishnan said the bank is seeing "very healthy" interest with clients across industry segments seeking to digitalise their collection processes with this end-to-end solution.

"Digital payments are now the norm at work and in society with increasing expectations for integrated and secure ways to pay and collect for products and services," he added.

But to be clear, eGIRO is not replacing paper GIRO for now and existing instructions or new setups by paper forms will not be migrated to eGIRO.

ABS and participating banks are working with the industry to onboard more banks and billing organisations onto eGIRO.

"There is a pipeline that we've already built up. As and when they're ready, they will definitely come onboard," said Anita Loh, chair for the eGIRO initiative and UOB head of product and digitalisation for group transaction banking.

eGIRO is built on API (application programming interface) and cloud-based architecture, which will allow the solution to quickly scale up to accommodate the needs of all banks and billing organisations in Singapore.

The platform, designed and implemented by Deloitte Consulting South-east Asia, will be operated by Banking Computer Services Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of NETS.

ABS director Ong Ai Boon said: "This truly transformative initiative is a contribution towards the Smart Nation drive and a push for greater adoption of digital transfers."

Sopnendu Mohanty, chief fintech officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said: "Individuals and businesses in Singapore will continue to benefit from the digitalisation effort and partnership between the regulator and the industry players, where eGIRO can pave the way for the industry to explore innovative payment models, such as automatic e-wallet top-ups in the future."

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