UEMS revolutionises salary payments to contract workers with HSBC’s Payment APIs

UEMS Solutions (UEMS) is a leading Integrated Facilities Management (IFM) company in Singapore, offering a comprehensive suite of services to both private and public sector organisations. Their expertise includes specialised housekeeping, cleaning, portering, visitor management, health attendant, meal services, concierge services, and facilities management, which they provide to a diverse set of industries such as healthcare, education and hospitality, and more.

A portion of UEMS’s workforce comprises contract-based personnel, who are deployed across various facilities to deliver specific services under short-term engagements. These workers are credited for each completed assignment, with cumulative earnings disbursed on a monthly basis.

Currently, Singapore faces challenges related to an ageing workforce and restrictions on foreign labour quotas, which makes attracting and retaining skilled workers in the competitive IFM and Healthcare support markets difficult. As such, UEMS was looking at ways of opening more avenues to attract talent in order to proactively meet issues related to labour shortages.

To address this, UEMS envisioned creating an in-house, industry-first portal that would allow for daily payment disbursements, removing the constraints of monthly payroll payments. By launching this portal, UEMS was looking to differentiate themselves from other companies by having the capability to pay contract workers daily. They noted this would resonate with contract workers by enabling instant payouts after the completion of a contract. This also carried the potential of attracting a new segment of workers who would prefer instant renumeration for their work due to their financial or work-life situations.

Despite this, however, UEMS was looking to avoid any impact to existing financial reporting or analysis. A solution that could feed the required information for payment reporting from the platform into their financial systems was therefore key to prevent disruptions to existing workflows.

To make this industry-first platform a reality, UEMS decided to adopt a suite of APIs from their chosen banking partner that accomplished the real-time payment fulfillment processes that they envisioned. By adopting HSBC’s Payment Initiation API, UEMS has a means of initiating bulk payments instantly via the disbursement portal without incurring significant costs from IT development and integration. Payments are fulfilled via FAST, Singapore’s real-time payment clearing rail, allowing contract workers to receive their salaries in mere seconds in their nominated bank accounts. This is complemented with HSBC’s Credit Notification API, which provides visibility on when funds have been disbursed to both end users and UEMS’ finance team, allowing for instant reconciliation of payments for staff, while enhancing the user experience.

UEMS staff also have the option of using HSBC’s Payment Status Enquiry API in order to gain real-time status updates on salary disbursements. This provides end-to-end visibility on the status of payments from processing to receipt by workers.

All APIs leverage industry standard formats, allowing for streamlined integration with UEMS’ existing systems.

With these three APIs, UEMS was able to meet their objective of fast and direct integration with their disbursement portal, allowing for daily, immediate payment of salary to contract workers.

• Allowed UEMS to launch an industry-first disbursement portal that aims to address labour shortages in their sectors
• Near-instant access to earnings, breaking away from the industry convention of monthly or weekly pay cycles
• Underscores UEMS's leadership in redefining workforce management by prioritising worker satisfaction, financial inclusivity, and operational efficiency
• Opens avenues to employment for individuals who require alternative arrangements from traditional employment to suit their circumstances
• Distinguishes UEMS as an employer of choice by marrying flexible work schedules with financial immediacy