FAQs:
Using your new World Account
General World Account questions
Here are some key things to be aware of:
- You can now modify your payee's details online 24/7 – no account manager needed
- You can make local transfers into your WorldFirst account via bank transfer (cheques will no longer be accepted)
- Any duplicated payee records will be automatically removed to help you manage your account
- If your account is accessed by multiple people, you'll need to re-authorise them
- If your previous settlement details is with a WorldFirst bank account, you can now have your own receiving accounts to receive/ top-up funds and make payments
For any queries, please reach us at +65 6805 4380 (Monday to Friday, 10am - 5pm SGT).
Absolutely. At this stage, we might ask you for further information (e.g. if the name on the payment doesn’t match the name on your World Account), but as soon as we verify that the names match you’ll be able to receive funds seamlessly.
Your receiving accounts will list all supported methods for collection and might vary per currency and account location.
Please note that we only support electronic payments – we can’t accept cash or cheques.
To reduce the likelihood of fraudulent activity, we're using a one-time password (OTP) sms and email as a two-factor authentication (2FA) when you login, create payees, make transactions including a few other tasks on World Account.
You can update your security settings by selecting 'My account' once you've login to your World Account.
There are three ways to retry:
- Click 'resend' to receive the OTP code, it should take 5-10 seconds
- Change OTP verification method by clicking 'change method'
- Upon login to the new portal, go to security settings found in the top-right dropdown bar to update your 2FA phone number and email address
Contact us at +65 6805 4380 or worldaccountsea@worldfirst.com if you face further issues.
Questions about payments
Payee (beneficiary): the individual-party receiving the payment.
Payer: the individual-party making the payment.
A ‘payer’ is the person or company paying funds into your receiving account. You can add a payer in the portal to ensure when funds are received so there is no delay. Simply follow these steps:
- Go to ‘Collection’
- Select the ‘Payers’ tab
- Add a payer
You can make payments to local and international suppliers and employees, as well as freelancers. You can also pay tax authorities/agents as well as yourself when you’re ready to repatriate funds. What's more, you'll be able to exchange funds between currency accounts.
Please be aware that there are some payments that we’re not able to accept for regulatory reasons. For more information on these restrictions, please see the Account Terms of Use within our Terms and Conditions.
We currently support the world’s major currencies:
GBP, USD, EUR, AUD, JPY, NZD, SGD, HKD, CNH, CAD, PLN, CZK, THB, DKK, MXN, AED, SAR, CHF, SEK, NOK, ZAR, RON, ILS, and BGN.
In the coming months, the following currencies will also be available to you: EGP, INR, RON, KRW, BGN, ILS, IDR, PKR, VND, MYR, PHP, HUF, BHD, BWP, KES, LKR, MAD, MUR, TRY.
Please note, that due to current sanctions, you are not able to access RUB.
The speed of your payment depends on factors including the currency you're sending money in, the payee's bank and country, as well as the size of the transaction.
The following currency/country combinations are normally received on the same day:
- EUR to Europe
- GBP to UK
- USD to US
- SGD to SG
- HKD/USD to HK
- AUD to AU
- NZD to NZ
For any currency/country combinations outside of the above list, please allow an additional 1-3 working days. However, in some cases, a payee’s bank may take an additional working day to credit their account. For specific currency timings, please contact us.
If you've scheduled a payment for a date in the future, we provide an option for you to cancel the payment in advance.
Just follow these steps:
- Head to 'Transaction Management'
- Select 'Pending Payments'
- Hit 'Cancel'
If you've provided an incorrect account number, name, address, or payment reference before the payment is processed by WorldFirst, we may be able to change the details for you.
In cases where the payment has already been processed by WorldFirst, we may be able to issue an amendment request to the payee's bank, although in some instances we may have to wait for the money to return in order to re-process the payment.
The course of action will be determined by the currency, bank or destination. For more details, please contact our customer service team.
Unfortunately, if a payment has been made to the wrong bank (e.g. if your payee has provided the wrong SWIFT, BIC or sort code), our only options are to wait for a return of the money or to recall the payment from the incorrect destination.
When adding a payee on the portal, you'll be prompted to add the relevant details, depending on your payment currency and payee country. For example:
- Europe - IBAN and SWIFT
- Canada - Account number, SWIFT and transit code
- Australia - Account number, SWIFT or BSB code
- New Zealand - Account number, 6-digit bank code and SWIFT
- USA - Account number, ABA routing number or SWIFT
- UK - Account number and sort code or SWIFT and IBAN
- India - Account number, SWIFT and IFSC number, reason for transfer
- China - Account number, SWIFT
- Mexico - Account number, IBAN and SWIFT
- Singapore - Account number and SWIFT
- Japan - Account number and SWIFT
- UAE - IBAN and SWIFT
Questions about collections
You can receive payments from a variety of sources, including:
- Online marketplaces
- Payment gateways
- Third-party businesses
- VAT returns or your own company or personal bank account
As a sole-trader (non-registered business), you can receive payments from approved marketplaces, tax authorities, and your own personal bank account.
If you operate any other business type, you can receive incoming payments from approved marketplaces, tax authorities, your own personal bank account and other approved third-party sources that accept and receive payments on behalf of your business.
From time to time, we might request additional information before we can apply a payment to your account. Supporting documents can be in relation to inbound credit, such as invoices or contracts. This is to help protect your account from fraud.
Please contact us if you have any concerns or questions about other types of payments you’d like to receive, or if you need to receive funds from anywhere else.
If you need a receiving account, don’t worry, we’ll do the work for you. For existing corporate customers, you’ll automatically be assigned the below receiving accounts in the following regions:
- UK/EEA: GBP/EUR/USD
- SEA: SGD/USD
- ANZ: AUD/NZD/USD
If you need receiving accounts in additional currencies, or additional receiving accounts in the same currency, simply follow the below steps:
- Go to your ‘Dashboard’
- Click/tap the quick link marked ‘Receive’
- Add a new Receiving Account
Unfortunately, previous settlement details will no longer be valid and any funds sent to these accounts will be subject to delays and potentially returned. Please ensure you update all stored payees on your external bank platforms, or with your suppliers as soon as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience.
Retired World First Asia Pte Ltd bank accounts that will not be available in the new portal:
World First Asia DBS SGD account - 003-93xxxx-x
World First Asia DBS USD account - 0003-0249xx-xx-x
World First Asia OCBC SGD account - 7134781xxxxx
World First Asia OCBC USD account - 5035383xxxxx
You can open up to 14 receiving accounts in any currency denomination we offer. If you need additional receiving accounts, please contact your Relationship Manager or our Customer Service team who will be happy to help.
Please note that your receiving account balance is only visible on a currency account level (not as a pooled balance).
From time to time, you may need to provide additional information before we can credit funds to your World Account. This is to help protect your account from fraud. When prompted, you can easily answer a few brief questions and/or supply any supporting documentation that may be required through the portal by following these steps:
- Go to ‘Dashboard’
- Select ‘Claim Inbound’
- Click/tap ‘Verify’
Whilst we review your information and/or supporting documentation the funds will be listed as ‘Unavailable’. Once we’ve completed our verification processes, your funds will be accessible and ready for use and your status will change to ‘Success’.
Managing FX deals
Any new FX transactions you carry out can be found under the ‘Funds Management’ tab as well as on the ‘Transaction Management’ page.
Your trade history can be found by selecting the ‘Historical Statements’ button on the
You’ll also be able to download a record of your trade history from this page.
You’ll be able to see both new and existing FX deals under the ‘Transaction Management’ tab under ‘FX Management’. You’ll also be able to download your trade confirmation receipts on this page of the portal.
Any pending payments for spot deals and forward contracts will appear under the ‘Pending Trades’ tab.
Login to WorldFirst portal, and follow the steps below:
- Go to 'Funds management' found in top headers
- Under 'Payee', select 'View all payees'
You can place an order for a spot deal using your World Account. Please remember to send money to your new currency account and ensure that it matches the currency denomination you’re sending us.
If you send the incorrect settlement currency, there will be delays in your transaction and funds will likely be returned. Please also remember to not use your old World First Asia Pte Ltd named accounts.
Multi-user accounts
As a WorldFirst customer, you can allocate permission levels to your employees so they can perform authorised activities without giving full access to your World Account. There are five different layers of access known as 'roles' which can be managed by authorised users and directors:
- Viewer: employee/delegate has 'view only' access control and is unable to create, make or authorise payments
- Creator: able to create payments for authorisation and make a payment below a designated amount
- Admin: can view and edit all permissions along with adding new users and creating/modifying user roles
- Authoriser 1: these are employees who are designed to have the first approval role
- Authoriser 2: these are employees who are designed to have a second approval role
All you have to do is go to the 'Approvals' tab, where you'll see your pending requests. Simply select 'Approve' for instant authorisation.
Alternatively, you can take a look at the 'Details' tab to view your full payment and payee details, and confirm your approvals from there.
Note: If you're the final authoriser, you will also be prompted to authenticate via sms notification.
If you created the request, you can select 'Created by me' and then click on 'Revoke'.
In the case that you're the authoriser, head to the 'Pending my approval' tab, select the request, and click on 'Decline'.
If you're a creator, L1/L2 authoriser or administrator you can track all authorisation requests by navigating to 'Approvals' in the navigation dashboard.
If you're a creator you can view all authorisation requests you have created and see the status i.e. if it’s pending approval, if it’s cancelled, if it's expired, or sent for payment.
If you're an authoriser you can view any requests pending your approval.
To invite a new user, follow these steps:
- Enter the name of the user and their email address
- Allocate and select their role
Once the user receives an email, they can sign-up for the account. As part of this, they will need to create their login credentials, set up their verified phone number and authenticate their account with a two-factor authentication via sms.
As an administrator, you can create a payment rule. For example, creating payment and approval thresholds to suit your business activity:
< £100: if a creator makes a payment of less than £100, this can be processed without any additional authorisation.
< £500: if a creator makes a payment under £500, the payment request will instead go to a ‘level one authoriser’ who will receive an email or prompt on the portal homepage to authorise the payment.
> £500: if a creator makes a payment over £500, the request will again be routed to a ‘level one authoriser’. Once approved at this stage, it will then go on to a ‘level two authoriser’ to approve the payment.
Statements
On the 'Statements' page, you can view all statements covering payments made from your account.
On this page, you can also search and filter by merchant IDs (this is the payee ID or account number). You can also select one or more currencies and filter between money coming into your receiving accounts, money coming out of your receiving accounts, and currency that you convert between your receiving accounts.
Login to WorldFirst portal, and follow the steps below:
- Go to 'Statements' found in top headers
- Filter the time period for statements you'd like to retrieve
- Select 'Download statements'
Yes, all of the historical information will be available in the new portal.
If you held a Corporate Account on our old platform, you'll find your historical statements on the new World Account portal. You'll also be able to see your trade history and payment history, these are available to download.
If you held a World Account on the old platform, you'll be able to see your payment history, which can also be downloaded.
Xero
Xero is business accounting software that enables small businesses, accountants, and bookkeepers to manage their finances in real-time.
You will need to reconnect your new World Account to Xero following the two steps below:
- Connect your WorldFirst user account to your Xero user account (requires your Xero username and password - see the next FAQ for details)
- Connect your WorldFirst currency accounts to your Xero bank accounts
You will not lose any transaction data. All transactions completed on the new World Account will be automatically shared to Xero.
Please note that for accounts switched from our old to our new World Account product will see two migration transactions in WorldFirst statements and Xero:
a) A 'subtract account balance' transaction applied to our old World Account. This will be automatically shared to Xero.
b) An 'add account balance' transaction applied to our new World Account. This will be automatically added only when you manually complete reconnection steps 1 and 2 above.
The two migration transactions allow us to migrate your account balance from the old platform to the new World Account platform and so, once you have reconnected your account, will cancel each other out to maintain your balance within Xero.
- Log in to WorldFirst and click on the 'My Account' icon in the top right of the screen
- Select 'Accounting apps' from the 'My Account' menu
- Click 'Connect' for the Xero app
- When prompted, enter your Xero account username and Xero account password
- Select 'Allow access' to allow data sharing between WorldFirst and Xero (if you have more than one organisation within your Xero user account then select the appropriate one at this stage)
Before you connect your account, you should already have registered for a Xero account (please visit xero.com/signup/ to register if needed).
For help and support, please email: xero.support@worldfirst.com You can also contact us over email or phone.
You should connect WorldFirst to Xero, both at user account level and bank account level, directly from the WorldFirst platform. Synchronising Xero to your World Account from the Xero platform is not currently supported.
We've made some changes to World Account balances. Your new World Account platform now displays currency account balances. Your currency account is the pooled balance of all your receiving accounts.
For example, if you receive 100 GBP into one receiving account and 100 GBP into another, your total GBP currency account balance will be 200 GBP. Connection to a Xero bank account must be made from a currency account.
To connect your World Account currency accounts to a Xero bank account:
- Identify the WorldFirst currency account to connect and click 'Connect'
- Select either option (a) or option (b):
(a) Create a new Xero [currency] account - Selecting this option will create a new bank account in Xero with the default name format: WorldFirst-[Currency code]. A new name can be entered.
(b) Select an existing Xero bank account - Existing same currency Xero bank accounts will be listed - Click 'Confirm'
- View confirmation message and click 'Done' to return to the 'currency account' view
- Transaction data will automatically be synchronised from any of your WorldFirst currency accounts connected to a Xero bank account within 60 minutes
You must hold a Premium paid Xero plan and will need to apply the multi-currency setting when logged in to the Xero platform if you are attempting to connect for a non-default currency.
For quick and easy steps to apply the currency setting in Xero, visit Xero Central.
To add a currency from your Premium Xero Account:
1. Click on the organisation name, select 'Settings', then click 'Currencies'.
2. Click 'Add Currency'.
3. Select a currency.
4. Click 'Add Currency'.
Transaction data will be synchronised to Xero hourly. After you first connect your WorldFirst currency accounts it may take up to 60 minutes to update.
Once your data has synchronised with Xero, a date-timestamp will be recorded within the WorldFirst currency account. If for any reason a transaction record fails to synch to Xero, then the next data synch will automatically reattempt to synch any missing records.
Yes, when a WorldFirst currency account is first connected, we will automatically share with Xero all transactions from / to the currency account since first use of this currency account.
You’ll need the Xero multi-currency subscription. You can then select the currencies you wish to trade in.
This transaction data will be automatically shared to a connected Xero bank account:
- Transaction date
- Transaction type (credit or debit)
- Transaction value
- Transaction reference
- Transaction description including payee information
GBP, USD, EUR, CAD, JPY, AUD, SGD, NZD, HKD and CNH
You must hold a Premium paid Xero plan and will need to apply the multi-currency setting when logged in to the Xero platform if you are attempting to connect for a non-default currency.
For quick and easy steps to apply the currency setting in Xero, visit Xero Central.
To add a currency from your Premium Xero Account:
1. Click on the organisation name, select 'Settings', then click 'Currencies'.
2. Click 'Add Currency'.
3. Select a currency.
4. Click 'Add Currency'.
To protect your information, we'll only access the names of the bank accounts that you've set up in Xero.