The Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited (OCBC) announced its latest API: the GIRO API. According to the Singapore-based bank, the latest release brings its open API portfolio to 43. GIRO, short for General Interbank Recurring Order, is an automated electronic payment service that allows billing companies to debit money from accounts for bill payment. The GIRO API allows for simple creation of GIRO payment facilities that utilize OCBC bank accounts.
OCBC envisions third party companies who have a need to bill customers (e.g. utilities, insurance companies, telecoms, etc.) to integrate the API so that OCBC customers can easily link their accounts for electronic bill pay. OCBC has already partnered with the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) to test the GIRO API. By November, OCBC customers will be able to pay income and property taxes through IRAS's myTax Portal, which is powered by the GIRO API.
The GIRO API uses the HTTP GET method. Responses are returned in a JSON data format. The API uses token-based access, and parameters include account ID, bill amount, bill payer's name, payer's contact number, billing reference number, and billing organization. The current billing organizations include a number of government entities, and insurance companies. See the exhaustive list within the API docs.
With the GIRO API, OCBC announced the Account Balance API, Account Transaction API, Merchant Card Payments API, and the Pay Anyone API. These are all transactional APIs and currently available in a sandbox environment so interested developers can test. Check out the API Products site to learn more.