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Customers with accounts in Singapore: updates required for GIRO payments submitted via the File Upload service

Last updated: 4 August 2016

Effective 1 October 2016, and in compliance with industry-wide initiatives supported by The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS), your GIRO (ACH) payments submitted via File Upload must include:

• SWIFT Bank Identification Code (BIC);
• complete beneficiary account number; and
• a valid Payment Purpose code.

GIRO payment instructions submitted via File Upload without the mandatory information above may be rejected.

In addition, the character limits of some fields will be expanded to support the inclusion of further payment information. This additional information can be used for reconciliation purposes for your Singapore Dollar (SGD) GIRO transactions.

SWIFT Bank Identification Code (BIC) requirement
The introduction of SWIFT BIC replaces the need to input bank and branch codes. As such, from 1 October, you will only be required to input the SWIFT BIC and the account number as the beneficiary bank account details.

Complete beneficiary account number requirement
For ACH payments to accounts maintained with HSBC, HSBC Bank (Singapore) Limited (HSBC Subsidiary),  Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) and State Bank of India (SBI), you will need to include the branch code as a prefix to the account number. The branch code forms part of the account number required by the beneficiary bank. Please refer to the examples illustrated below:

	Current			Post Upgrade
Bank Name	Bank Code	Branch Code	Account Number	SWIFT/BIC	Account Number
HSBC	7232	146	123456789	HSBCSGSGXXX	146123456789
HSBC Subsidiary	9548	147	123456789	HSBCSGS2XXX	147123456789
OCBC	7339	550	1234567	OCBCSGSGXXX	5501234567
			123456789		550123456789
SBI	7791	277	12345678901	SBINSGSGXXX	277123456789
All other banks	After the upgrade, you do not need to include the Bank code and Branch code. Instead, you will need to include the SWIFT/BIC and the account number only.
Important note: following the upgrade, payments made via HSBCnet that do not include the revised beneficiary account number format may be rejected by the beneficiary bank.

Payment Purpose Code requirement
The inclusion of a code referencing the purpose of payment to the beneficiary account will be required for all domestic SGD GIRO payments from accounts in Singapore.

For more information on how to format your GIRO files, as well as the list of financial institutions and their associated SWIFT BIC and Payment Purpose Codes, please refer to the Singapore GIRO (ACH) Payment Formatting Guide by selecting the ‘Help’ link in the File Upload service.

(Select image to enlarge)

Please note, as of 1 October, HUB MRI and Singapore MRI file formats will no longer be supported by HSBCnet. If you are currently using these formats for File Upload, you must implement one of the supported file formats indicated in the HSBC Singapore GIRO (ACH) Payment Formatting Guide.

If you have further queries regarding the upcoming GIRO enhancements, please contact your local HSBCnet Support Centre.

 

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