Faster Payment System (FPS; , more commonly known as 轉數快) is a real-time gross settlement payment system in Hong Kong that connects traditional banks and electronic payment and digital wallet operators. Users are able to perform instant money transfer or make payment to merchants by using the recipient's phone number, e-mail or QR code that contains the user's numeric identifier. Using the "traditional way" of full name and account number to make interbank transfer is also allowed. The system was implemented by the

Hong Kong Monetary Authority The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is Hong Kong's central bank, central banking institution. It is a government authority founded on 1 April 1993 when the Office of the Exchange Fund and the Office of the Commissioner of Banking merged. Th ...

and operated by Hong Kong Interbank Clearing Limited (HKICL). It was launched for pre-registration on 17 September 2018. Transfers and payments is available since 30 September 2018.

Features

Cheap transfers

Traditional interbank transfers required payment of fees between 50 HKD and 200 HKD, or a waiting time of up to two days before the payment clears. FPS provides an instant, round-the-clock and cheap way of transferring funds. For personal banks accounts, interbank fund transfer through FPS is normally free of service charges.

Payment by QR code

Participants in the FPS share a common standard for the QR code which allows paying to merchants using a variety of payment methods like

bank cards Payment cards are part of a payment system issued by financial institutions, such as a bank, to a customer that enables its owner (the cardholder) to access the funds in the customer's designated bank accounts, or through a credit account and ma ...

, stored value facilities or direct debit from bank accounts. HKMA has released a tool for merchants to convert QR codes from different payment providers into a single standard QR code.

Currencies

FPS supports payments in Hong Kong dollars (HKD) and Chinese Yuan Renminbi (CNY).

Notable participants

Traditional banks

* Bank of China (Hong Kong) * Bank of Communications * Bank of East Asia * China Citic Bank International *

China Construction Bank (Asia) China Construction Bank (Asia) Corporation Limited (Traditional Chinese: 中國建設銀行(亞洲)股份有限公司) is a licensed bank incorporated in Hong Kong. History The Bank has over 100 years of history in Hong Kong, when its predecessor ...

* Chiyu Banking Corporation * Chong Hing Bank *

Citibank (Hong Kong) Citibank (Hong Kong) Limited (Chinese: 花旗銀行, formerly 萬國寶通銀行) is a Citigroup subsidiary, which is a licensed bank incorporated in Hong Kong. History Citibank began operations in Hong Kong in 1902, thus becoming the first ...

* CMB Wing Lung Bank * Dah Sing Bank * DBS Bank (Hong Kong) * Hang Seng Bank *

HSBC HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tri ...

(The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) *

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (Asia) The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (Asia), or more commonly known as ICBC (Asia) (Traditional Chinese: 中國工商銀行(亞洲), 工銀亞洲) is a licensed bank incorporated in Hong Kong. It is a subsidiary of the Industrial and Commer ...

* Nanyang Commercial Bank * OCBC Wing Hang Bank * United Overseas Bank * Shanghai Commercial Bank *

Standard Chartered (Hong Kong) Standard Chartered plc is a multinational bank with operations in consumer, corporate and institutional banking, and treasury services. Despite being headquartered in the United Kingdom, it does not conduct retail banking in the UK, and around 9 ...

* ZA Bank Limited

E-wallet operators

* AlipayHK * Tap & Go ( HKT Payment Limited) * Octopus Wallet ( Octopus Cards Limited) * WeChat Pay HK *

PayMe PayMe (officially known as PayMe from HSBC) is a mobile payment service from HSBC, currently available only for Hong Kong users with local phone numbers and banks. Users can pay businesses, transfer money to one another using a mobile app, li ...

* 5D Pay ( Yintran Group Holdings Limited)

Incidents

October 2018

After 3 weeks of launching FPS in Hong Kong, there were several cases of fraud reported to Hong Kong Police that involved a combined loss of HKD 180,000 to customers. After the incidents were found, HKMA suspended the functions of top up to all e-wallets operators until security issue fixed. Few days later, it was revealed that more than 10 suspected cases were reported and the loss was surged to HKD 400,000.

References

External links

* {{Interbank networks 2018 establishments in Hong Kong Payment clearing systems Banking in Hong Kong Banking technology