Making a payment on behalf of others?

Starting in January 2025, we’re updating HSBCnet screens for payments made on the behalf of other parties in the UK to support enriched ISO 20022 payment data.

The enhanced payment screens will be introduced in phases. We expect to complete the rollout to all HSBCnet profiles with UK accounts by the end of April 2025.

Here’s what’s changing in early 2025

Below are some of the changes you will notice in HSBCnet starting from January 2025.

1. New and updated fields for payment screens and templates:

   In line with ISO 20022 standards, we’re introducing updated address fields and new regulatory fields for payments from accounts in the UK as follows:

   Payment fields	Current address fields	Payment details required
   Instructing Party (Ultimate Debtor) final party that bears the responsibility of making payment Originating financial institution (where the address is populated)** Final Beneficiary (Ultimate Creditor) party that is ultimate beneficiary of the payment	Name* Address* Address line 1 Address line 2 Country or territory	Name* (extended to support up to 140 characters)
   		Town / city*
   		State / county
   		Country / territory*
   		Additional address details
   * Indicates a mandatory field ** Applicable for Financial Institution customers Note: the beneficiary details in the ‘Pay to’ section will include the new address fields as detailed in above table; however, providing details in ‘Town / city’ and ‘Country / territory’ fields is currently not mandatory.

2. Bank of England Purpose of Payment and Legal Entity Identifier requirements

   Effective 1 May 2025, Purpose codes will become mandatory for property transactions and certain transactions from financial institutions. Legal Entity Identifier information will also be required for financial organisations that are regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and authorised as deposit taking or broker dealers. Find out how to incorporate these requirements in payments by selecting the link below:

   Bank of England requirements effective 1 May 2025 ❯

3. New Unique End-to-end Transaction Reference (UETR):

   The UETR will be made available for UK CHAPS and international payments starting in January 2025.

   A UETR is a string of 36 unique characters featured in all payment instruction messages carried over payment systems that support ISO 20022 standards. You can quote the UETR to our Client Services team when requesting payment investigation.

4. Enhanced ‘Related reference’ field:

   In line with ISO standards, the ‘Related reference’ field will support up to 35 characters.

5. Ultimate Debtor information in statement narratives:

   If you’re making any domestic or cross-border payments on behalf of other instructing parties, the Ultimate Debtor information may be included after the /ULTD/ codeword in your statement narrative from early January 2025.

What you need to do

To prepare for this change, we recommend that you review your HSBCnet payment instructions as follows:

• Payment templates:

  If you have any restricted or general templates created before January 2025, you may not be able to use this template for payment creation after the effective date. We strongly recommend that you create a new template or modify the existing template as soon as the enhanced screen becomes available. This helps make sure you can continue to use your payment templates.

  You will need to modify existing restricted templates by replacing any unstructured address with the structured address, specifically providing inputs in the ’Town / city’ and ‘Country / territory’ fields.

  If you include payment details in the following fields, the structured address requirements from January 2025:

  Payment parties	Town / city field	Country / territory field
  Beneficiary	Optional	Optional
  Instructing Party	Mandatory	Mandatory
  Originating Financial Institution	Mandatory	Mandatory
  Final Beneficiary	Mandatory	Mandatory

  Please note that in existing templates, beneficiary address will appear pre-filled in the ‘Non-standard beneficiary address’ section. However, we recommend that you begin updating the existing template and providing structured address details in ‘Town / city’ and ‘Country / territory’ fields.

• Priority Payments in ‘pending’ status:

  If you have any Priority Payments with Instructing Party details in ‘pending’ status, we recommend that you submit them before January 2025 to avoid payment rejections. If you complete these pending payments after the effective date, the payment creator will need to update the instruction using the new address fields before the payment can be authorised.

• Forward-dated payments and standing instructions:

  If you have any forward-dated payments or standing instructions, they will be submitted with the payment information that has already been entered. We recommend that you cancel and re-create these payment instructions once the enhanced screen is available.

  For any standing instructions with Beneficiary and/or Instructing Party address details, you will need to re-create those instructions using the new fields once the enhanced screen is available. This will help you benefit from the enhanced name and structured address information.

Updating HSBC Connect and File Upload payment files

Here are some of the changes for CHAPS and international payments made on behalf of others:

We’ll start supporting payment files with the enhanced data in HSBCnet File Upload and HSBC Connect customers in phases. We expect to complete the rollout to all HSBCnet profiles with UK accounts by the end of April 2025.

Find out more

To learn more about the new payment screens, please visit the ISO 20022 migration guide.