Eight Singapore banks will participate in the initial launch of the Association of Banks in Singapore’s (ABS) eGIRO launch, an initiative to fully digitise the GIRO process.

The eight banks who will be part of the initial phase will be the Bank of China, DBS Bank/POSB, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Maybank, OCBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and UOB Bank.

Meanwhile, the billing organisations who will also be part of the pilot are Bank of China Credit Cards, Central Provident Fund Board, Diner’s Club, Etiqa Insurance Singapore, FWD Insurance – Singapore, GrabPay, Housing Development Board, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Credit Cards, iFast Corporation Limited, Singapore E-Business Pte. Ltd, Singlife, Singtel Dash, YouTrip.

The eGIRO service is built on API and cloud-based architecture, which will allow the solution to quickly scale to accommodate the needs of all banks and billing organisations in Singapore. The eGIRO platform, designed and implemented by Deloitte Consulting Southeast Asia, will be operated by Banking Computer Services Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of NETS.

The General Interbank Recurring Order or GIRO is a payment method that enables users to make direct payments from their bank accounts to billing organisations.

With the launch of eGIRO, instead of a three to four week process end-to-end, the fully digitised service will cut down the turnaround time to a matter of minutes for a consumer and less than 48 hours for a corporate with approvers.

However, according to ABS, eGIRO will still not be replacing the old GIRO process.