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DBS Bank yesterday launched a new AXS Direct Debit Authorisation (xDDA) service to simplify and speed up the Giro application process.
DBS/POSB customers will be able to complete a Giro application in minutes, with a few simple keystrokes, at select AXS stations island-wide.
This will dramatically reduce the turnaround time for Giro applications - from the industry norm of three weeks on average to as short as a day.
Traditionally, to sign up for Giro, consumers fill in a form and mail it to the billing organisation, which batches the forms before sending them out to banks for validation and processing. With xDDA, the whole process can be done electronically in a day.
'AXS allows us to bring another everyday convenience to our four million customers by streamlining the Giro sign-up process,' said Rajan Raju, managing director and head of the consumer banking group at DBS.
DBS/POSB customers can now sign up for Giro with three organisations - DBS Credit Cards, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) and StarHub - via more than 180 AXS stations island-wide. This will be extended to all 600 AXS stations by year-end. Customers simply need their ATM card and PIN to sign up at an AXS machine.
The new service is in line with the industry's push towards electronic payments, which obviate the need to issue cheques and cut out late payments to billing organisations.
'DBS processes 75,000 paper applications on average each month,' said Lum Yin Fong, managing director of the bank's global transaction services. 'With xDDA, billing organisations can provide faster turnaround time to clients.
'The reduction in paper processing will boost efficiency, so organisations can redeploy resources from manual processes to other core and important functions.'
Iras said taxpayers can sign up to pay income tax through Giro using xDDA, and other tax types will be introduced. Iras receives about 5,000 Giro application forms on average each month, including many from DBS/POSB customers.
'xDDA will help to encourage more taxpayers to use Giro,' said Patricia Mak, assistant commissioner for Iras's accounting and processing division. 'We look forward to enjoying improved efficiency and providing greater convenience to taxpayers.'
Besides the new xDDA, DBS offers two other online direct debit authorisation services - namely eDDA via Nets Eftpos terminals and iDDA through DBS Internet Banking.
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