2011 was also the year in which a number of new Basware services was launched. Among other things, a new e-invoicingdienst for customers within the Finnish market was launched, which wasd developed together with Nordea Bank. In addition, Basware introduced InvoiceOut, an extension to the already existing Basware AP Automation service.

And they can add some more blessings to their list. On of those is that Basware Automation Services, including for SaaS and e-Invoicing, generated a growth of 32.2% compared with 2010.

The year 2011 in Basware facts and figures

And we have some more nice data for you:

• Net sales grew with 4.5% to EUR 107.7 million
• Operating profit decreased to EUR 12.2 million, which included a restructuring provision of EUR 1.2 million due to streamlining measures.
• Transaction volume in 2011 grew by 53% to 20.8 million
• Recurring revenue accounted for 48.9% of net sales.
• Basware saw the largest growth in net sales in Finland (4.5%) and Scandinavia (8.7%) .
• Maintenance revenues for 2011 increased by 8.9% compared with 2010, accounting for 33.6% of net sales.
• Professional Services revenue increased by 4.5%, accounting for 31.7% of net sales.

Basware in Q4 2011

We even have some facts on the results in Q4 2011:

• a slight growth in net sales to EUR 30 million, a growth of 0.3%.
• Operating profit in the quarter decreased by 30%, having included the restructuring provision of EUR 1.2 million.
• Automation Services, including SaaS and e-invoicing grew by 17.9%, with transaction volumes processed within the Automation Services business reaching 6.2 million in Q4.
• Basware estimates revenue for existing automation services agreements over the next 12 months to be EUR 18.3 million, a growth of 6.2%.
• In Q4, license sales decreased by 16.3%, as sales of SEPA (Single European Payments Area) related banking software decreased by 48.5% as the majority of customers had already implemented the SEPA update.
• Maintenance revenue in Q4 increased by 7.2%, accounting for 31% of net sales.

Basware expects its net sales to grow from 2011, and operating profit for 2012 is expected to be EUR 8-18 million. So, now you know.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Basware E-invoicing Services grows 32 percent. Transaction volume up 53 percent.

The convenience of online payment is enormously boosted by eliminating the tedious entry of long IBAN and BIC numbers and payment data.  Additionally, the photo and payment data can be archived for compliance reasons.”

“The world’s first iPhone scan application to conveniently pay your payslips. Innovative technology for Raiffeisen online banking powered by ISIS Papyrus.”

Take a look at the video to get a better understanding  http://bit.ly/rjXWct

ISIS Papyrus

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Pay your pay slips and SEPA slips using your iPhone.

Update
Kimmi is not the only one dealing with this problem. Antti Larvala has the same problem.

Do you experience similar problems with e-invoicing like Kimmo? Either as a seller or a buyer — would you please let him know? It could be powerful ammunition at the SIMFO conference in Krakow.

Even if you post your replies here as comments, could I ask you to also copy them to my email address kimmolinkama@gmail.com?

BUSINESS HAMSTRUNG BY E-INVOICING NOT WORKING ACROSS BORDERS

“Originally from Finland and still a Finnish citizen, I have now lived and run my one-man company in Estonia for 6 years. I must say the change went surprisingly smoothly — of course, there was a certain amount of bureaucracy involved, but nothing that couldn’t happen in your native country.

Business-wise there is one big hurdle, though.

Although my business is registered in Estonia and I’m physically in Estonia, all my clients are in Finland. This means I’m sending all my invoices to Finland.

Both countries are using the euro currency, are members of the EU, have advanced electronic banking systems and operate pretty much in the same way in business. The Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) has been around for years, and in both countries you can bill your clients electronically — as long as you’re sending the bills within the country. Cross-border e-invoicing is impossible.

I used to circumvent this by sending my bills in PDF format by email, but now more and more clients have outsourced their financial administration, and the outsourcing partners do not accept PDF files.

Now I have to print out the invoice on paper, put it in an envelope, stamp the envelope and physically take it to the nearest mailbox. This effectively sets the whole invoicing process back some 200 years.

My company has a business bank account in Finland for the convenience of my clients (amazingly, it was possible even though the company is registered in another country). This, however, does not enable my company to e-invoice in Finland, because a Finnish Business ID number is required for the process. You guessed it, an ID number will not be given to a company registered in a foreign country.

When a Finnish client pays the bill to the Finnish bank account, the problems are not over yet. For some unfathomable reason it takes THREE banking days to transfer the money from my company’s Finnish bank account to its Estonian bank account. If there happens to be a weekend or public holiday during those three banking days, I’m practically deprived of the use of my own money for the best part of a week.

This is totally unacceptable. I fail to understand why, given that the technological framework has existed for years, an international bank transfer could not happen within the about 10 minutes it does domestically.

I fail to understand why, given that the technological framework has existed for years, an international bank transfer could not happen within the about 10 minutes it does domestically.”

Background
This competition is organized jointly by the European Commission, the European Parliament and the future Polish Presidency of the Council within the framework of the Single Market Forum.

The Single Market Forum (SIMFO), aims at bringing together citizens, businesses and public authorities from all over Europe to take stock of the single European market as well as to discuss on new ideas for forthcoming initiatives and on how to improve implementation of the Single Market Act.

The goal of this competition is to collect “real evidences” of the use of the Single Market by their main actors (citizens, consumers, SMEs) from all Member States. These stories will serve as a starting point of the discussions in the Single Market Forum.

Original article:
http://www.tellusyourstory.eu/content/businesses-hamstrung-e-invoicing-not-working-across-borders
http://www.linkama.com/news/cross-border-e-invoicing-doesnt-work-how-linkama-goes-to-krakow/

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: BPO sets the whole invoicing process back some 200 years [UPDATE].

Joaquín Almunia Commission, Vice President in charge of Competition Policy, said: “Use of the internet is increasing rapidly making the need for secure and efficient online payment solutions in the whole Single Euro Payments Area all the more pressing. I therefore welcome the work of the European Payments Council to develop standards in this area. In principle, standards promote inter-operability and competition, but we need to ensure that the standardisation process does not unnecessarily restrict opportunities for non-participants.”

The European Payments Council (EPC) supports and promotes the creation of an integrated payments market through its self regulatory project the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). The European Commission endorses the SEPA project as it is crucial for consumers, retailers and companies to enjoy the full benefits of the Single Market and in principle welcomes the development of standards for e-payments.

The Commission recognises the importance of standardisation in terms of promoting economic integration, which results in greater efficiencies and better prices and services for the consumer. The EU Guidelines on horizontal agreements adopted in 2010 set out clearly the kinds of agreements that do not raise competition concerns and the way that the Commission analyses standardisation agreements and procedures under EU competition rules (see IP/10/1702 and MEMO/10/676).

The Commission intends to investigate whether the e-payments standardisation process will not unduly restrict competition, for example through the exclusion of new entrants and payment providers who are not linked to a bank. Such restrictions, if established, could harm merchants and consumers in the market of e-payments. This could breach EU rules on restrictive business practices – Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and Article 53 of the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement. The Commission has received a complaint which will form part of this investigation.

Background on antitrust investigations
Article 101 of the TFEU prohibits anticompetitive agreements and decisions of associations of undertakings. The implementation of this provision is defined in the EU’s Antitrust Regulation (Council Regulation No 1/2003), which can also be applied by national competition authorities.

By initiating proceedings, the Commission relieves national competition authorities of their authority to apply the EU rules in this area. National courts must also refrain from making decisions, which could conflict with a Commission decision.

The Commission has informed the parties and the national competition authorities that it has opened proceedings in this case.

The initiation of proceedings does not imply that the Commission has made a definitive finding of an infringement but means that the Commission will deal with the case as a matter of priority.

There is no legal deadline to complete antitrust investigations. The duration depends on a number of substantial and procedural factors.

Source: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/1076&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Antitrust: Commission opens investigation in e-payment market.

Tim McGrath, vice chair of OASIS UBL , explains in his recent post on UBL XML.org, that UBL is the clearest path towards a single common data format for XML business documents. Underneath is an impressum of his post (all credit go to Tim McGrath):

“The situation in Europe with regards to electronic invoicing is a useful example of the present confusion in eBusiness document standards.

This article will try to both explain the situation in Europe and also how UBL (the OASIS Universal Business Language) intends to satisfy European requirements. Without such an explanation, many of those implementing what they believe to be appropriate solutions will be misled into thinking they are standardizing, when in fact they aren’t.

In late 2010 the European Commission issued a communication aiming to ‘Promote a common e-invoicing standard’.  It stated:

Following the recommendations of the Expert Group, “the UN/CEFACT Cross-Industry Invoice (CII) v.2 should be adopted as the common reference semantic data model upon which future e-invoice content standard solutions are based”. It should be left to the market to utilise this data model and adapt it to specific business needs.

Unfortunately, the Commission have chosen to recommend a data model that is so big and complex that conformance does not ensure any consistency in what could be contained in an Invoice document. So the European standards organization, CEN, has been commissioned to create a meaningful subset, as well as a user guide, for how the data model should be used.  This CEN Message User Guideline project (MUG) is currently work-in-progress.

Meanwhile, UBL aims to ensure that the UBL Invoice both satisfies the requirements of the European Commission as well as those of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), the European integrated retail payments market.

The SEPA customer-to-bank electronic document formats (known as Payment Initiation or, without irony, pain messages) cover the ‘downstream’processing of invoice information for payment through the banking systems.  Like all XML financial industry standards, these are based on the ISO 20022 vocabulary.

The UBL Invoice is an ‘upstream’ document that must contain the information required by the banking system.  UBL 2.1 will provide a mapping of the UBL Invoice elements to the equivalent SEPA pain elements (there are an estimated 170 of these) so that applications can transform information in one format to the other. In a business sense, this means extracting payment information from an Invoice.

When the CEN MUG project finalizes its core invoice requirements, UBL will also map those to the UBL Invoice.  This should be straightforward, as the MUG will be similar to the existing CEN BII ‘core’ subset based on the UBL Invoice. Together these tasks will ensure UBL meets all requirements of eInvoice users in Europe.

In practice, this means that anyone using the UBL Invoice does not need to (and should not) consider changing to various flavours of UN/CEFACT or any other XML document standards – despite the misinformation being circulated by vested interest groups.  Indeed, the UBL Invoice is the only XML Invoice document standard that is sanctioned, stable, integrated within a suite of supply chain documents and is the nearest thing the world has to a purpose-built ebXML document format.

Significantly, UBL invoices have been used in some of the world’s most successful eInvoicing projects over the past 6 years– many within Europe.  It is unfortunate that the European Commission (itself a user of UBL for eInvoicing) is not capitalizing on this advantage in its policies.

This paradox exemplifies the confusion about standards and emphasizes that if the eInvoice community wants to find a clear path towards a single common standard format for XML business documents (such as eInvoices), then UBL is the most practical base to build upon.

Fortunately, history tells us that ultimately pragmatism will prevail and market requirements for eInvoice document standards will be met by the most suitable solution – is this case the one that exists and works.  Meanwhile we will have to bear with the noise and distraction of false prophets.  UBL can bear it if you can!

Source:  UBL.XML.org

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Why consider CII or SEPA with the advent of UBL 2.1?.

This article is part of the co-author series of the EEI Platform. It was originally posted on www.thepaypers.com. The original version of the article can be found at: http://www.thepaypers.com/news/interviews/how-ebilling-can-help-sepa-direct-debit-acceptance/743773-38

This article focuses on how eBilling — defined as electronic bill presentment and payment for business to consumer — can improve the acceptance of Single Euro Payments Area Direct Debit (SDD). It is an exclusive feature by Peter Kwakernaak, CEO of AcceptEmail.

Direct Debit functions well as a payment instrument for many creditors in the euro zone. The main reason for the popularity of Direct Debit is that the authorisation to initiate the payment resides with creditors — of course, only after debtors have properly mandated them. Furthermore, it’s easy to link a Direct Debit to the original underlying invoice, which ensures efficient processing. Finally, bank charges for Direct Debit are reasonable.

The advent of SDD, however, leads to more hassle, more cost and more uncertainty for creditors and debtors.

Creditors face two specific requirements from SDD that are a burden: the extension of the refund period and the Direct Debit pre-notification. Both requirements result from concerns consumer organisations have about the potential abuse of the system when collectors across Europe can reach consumers’ current accounts.

The extension of the refund period from 30 days to eight weeks under the Payment Services Directive has affected the appetite of various industries for SDD. Imagine a travel agent offering this payment instrument for last-minute trips. A customer could purchase a weekend trip to New York, fly first class and stay in a five-star hotel, before initiating a refund via his bank after the trip. In this instance, it would be very hard for the travel agency to get its money, especially if the customer lived in another country.

Creditors notify debtors of amounts and due dates before they try to collect from debtors’ banks. This pre-notification may be sent together with, or as part of, other commercial documents (e.g. an invoice). In a number of cases, this is an additional administrative requirement imposed on creditors by SDD.

Debtors have to cope with the idea that anybody in Europe can attempt to debit their account, which can be a frightening thought. Some consumers may, therefore, block their accounts for Direct Debit totally, despite the preventive measures taken within SDD.

The consequences of this situation are that creditors suffer increased costs, deal with more exceptions and might not recognize revenues until the extended refund period on SDD has expired.

EBilling via email mitigates these consequences for creditors and debtors. In the case of SDD bounces or exceptions (90% of which are due to lack of funds at the moment of processing), creditors can immediately generate an eBill reminder that initiates an online payment. Experience has shown that 50%-75% of debtors will pay the bill in a short time, especially for those SDDs that bounced because of a lack of funds. Compared with a traditional Dunning process, this saves a lot of time and cost.

The advantage for debtors is that they can determine who they wish to receive eBills from and the moment of payment initiation. If they have insufficient funds in the account they normally use for Direct Debit, debtors can easily pick another account to pay from.

In a practical scenario, eBilling can be used with SDD to cater for the regulatory requirement of pre-notifications and the cash collection. Debtors receive an SDD pre-notification in an e-mail that gives the status of the payment two weeks before processing. On the SDD’s processing date, the status changes dynamically either to “OK”, indicating that the SDD has been processed successfully, or “NOT OK”, which indicates that the SDD has bounced. Banks send bounced SDDs back in batch to creditors in electronic format. The creditors’ system then automatically generates a reminder eBill out of the batch file of bounced SDDs.

This leads us to the conclusion that combining eBilling with SDD will increase the acceptance of SDD. EBilling can be used to present bills with the Direct Debit pre-notification and as a reminder in case of bounced SDDs. The result is a win-win situation, in which debtors keep maximum control of their payments and gain an easy tool to make online payments after bounced SDDs that doesn’t require them to enter any data. Creditors maximize automated processing and combine the regulatory requirement of SDD pre-notification with their own collections process (Dunning). As a result, creditors can meet their objective to collect outstanding invoices as fast as possible (to reduce days sales outstanding) with as little cost as possible.

Source: The Paypers

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: How eBilling can help SEPA Direct Debit acceptance.

By Steve Keifer

2010 is an exciting time in the world of B2B integration standards for the European banking sector.  In this case, I am not referring to the continued rollout of SEPA in the EuroZone, but rather the extended reach of EBICS.  EBICS is a highly secure file transfer protocol being used in the French and German banking communities for exchange of cash management related transactions.

The name EBICS stands for Electronic Banking Internet Communications Standard (EBICS).  EBICs is the successor to an earlier standard named BCS that was used in the German banking sector from the mid-1980s until the end of 2007.  BCS refers to the Banking Communication Standard which was developed by the German Credit Committee, which is known as Zentraler Kreditausschuss Association (ZKA) in German (longer, but no doubt easier to say than Eyjafjallajokull).

BCS was originally designed to offer a standardized approach for corporate-to-bank communication.  In the early days of electronic banking many of the technology vendors were developing their own proprietary protocols in lieu of a widely adopted standard.  BCS was based upon the ISO 8571 standard commonly known as FTAM (File Transfer Access and Management).  German banks were mandated to offer BCS as a communication adoption starting in the 1990s.  The mandate along with the publicly available distribution of the specifications led to widespread adoption of BCS across German industry.  Challenges began to emerge shortly after 2000 with the popularity of the Internet as a network for business transactions.  As with all transaction types, the industry began to seek alternative IP-based protocols for electronic banking.  The ZKA responded by evolving the BCS standard into a more fully-functional, Internet based standard called EBICS.

EBICS is a transport protocol that offers secure transmission of files independent of the payload.  As a result, EBICS can be utilized to exchange a variety of banking information such as account statements; securities holdings; debit and credit payment orders.  EBICS supports the traditional SWIFT FIN/MT message classes such as the MT 103 and MT 940.  Furthermore, EBICS can be easily extended to support the new ISO 20022 XML (SWIFT MX) messages.  The EBICS protocol is based upon HTTP, but with network encryption using TLS.  Due to the nature of the financial transactions EBICS supports, high levels of security are incorporated.  EBICS also offers checkpoint/restart capability which enables the file transmission process to gracefully resume in the event of interruption (rather than having to start over).

EBICS has been offered in Germany since January 2008.  Adoption has been much quicker than other B2B messaging standards.  The success is due in part to the fact that the traditional alternative, the legacy BCS standard, will no longer be supported at the end of this year.  All of the major German banks – Deutsche, Commerzbank, Dresdner (Allianz) and HypoVereinsbank support the protocol along with the smaller, regional institutions.

The big news in 2010, however, is not just the decommissioning of BCS, but rather the adoption of EBICS within the French market.   A new version of EBICS (2.4) has been developed to meet the needs of the local French payments and banking sector.    Much like in Germany, EBICS will be replacing a legacy communications protocol called ETEBAC (Echange TElematique BAnque Clients) in France.  ETEBAC is scheduled for end-of-life in 2011, which is driving a sense of urgency for French corporate and financial institutions to migrate to new connectivity options.  EBICS is not the only option for French corporate.  Treasurers can choose to connect to their financial institutions via SWIFTNet or alternatively via a web-based portal provided by the bank itself.

ETEBAC, the French communications protocol being replaced, has a rich history much like BCS.  The original versions of ETEBAC (v1 and v2) were unidirectional in nature.  ETEBAC1 enabled corporate clients to upload a file (e.g. payment instruction) to a bank using a secure transmission over the phone network.  Conversely, ETEBAC2 offered the ability to download a file (e.g. account statement) from a bank.   The most popular version of ETEBAC was version 3, which supported bidirectional exchange of files via the TRANSPAC network.  A fourth and fifth version of the ETEBAC standards were developed but never reached the popularity of ETEBAC3.

The rollout of EBICS in France and Germany offers an interesting case study in the evolution of B2B communications standards.  In my next post I will highlight what we can learn from the new EBICS protocol.

By Steve Keifer

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: EBICS – The Standard for Corporate-to-Bank Communication?.

WHAT’S THE ISSUE?

in your home country. This applies to:

• bank transfers
• direct debits
• credit/debit card payments
• withdrawals from cash dispensers (ATMs).

To do this, EU countries’ individual payment systems have to be phased out and replaced

by existing EU-wide system, within 12 to 24 months. Despite significant progress, this is happening too slowly – the EU wants to speed up the process.

WHAT EXACTLY WOULD CHANGE?
The EU is to:

• set deadlines for the 2 main payment methods – bank transfers and direct debits –to

move to the SEPA scheme: 1 and 2 years respectively.

• ban the use of hidden fees between banks for direct debit transactions; currently

charged in 6 countries.

WHO WOULD BENEFIT AND HOW?

• Individuals and businesses would be able to make payments throughout the EU easily,

cheaply and reliably.

• The cost of direct debits would become clearer.
• The cost of direct debits and bank transfers could come down even more, as there would

be greater competition in the banking industry.

• The resulting innovation, alongside the cheaper cost of moving money around the EU, could

stimulate economic growth worth €300 bn in the first 6 years – if the changes are made fully

and quickly.

WHY DOES ACTION HAVE TO BE TAKEN BY THE EU?

• As of August 2010, only 9.3% of all bank transfers in the eurozone were made using the EUwide

system (source: European Central Bank). If this trend continues, the full benefits of

• SEPA would not be felt for 30 years.
• As this is an EU-wide project requiring action in multiple countries, all parties involved

recognise that swift progress depends on action at EU level.

WHEN IS THE PROPOSAL LIKELY TO COME INTO EFFECT?

• During 2011 (following debate by the EU Council and European Parliament).

Source: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/payments/docs/sepa/citizens_summary_en.pdf

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: SEPA: A Citizens’ summary.

It will mean that national credit transfers and direct debits are phased out and the recently created pan-European systems take their place, respectively 12 and 24 months after the entry into force of the Regulation.

This will reduce the costs of payments, increase competition and make cross-border payments as easy as domestic ones. The Commission’s proposal now passes to the European Parliament and the Member States for consideration.

Internal Market and Services Commissioner Michel Barnier said: “We have a Single Market, many countries share a single currency and soon we will move to a single pan-European payment system in Europe. It means that making payments cross-border will become as easy as making them at home. Consumers will only need one bank account and their payments will be faster, cheaper and safer. Businesses will benefit from one set of standards and much simpler processes. The proposal adopted today fixes end-dates to make this pan-European system a reality, hopefully as early as 2012.”

Self-regulatory efforts have proven not to be sufficient to drive forward concerted migration to SEPA. According to available European Central Bank (ECB) data, as of October, only 9.6 % of all credit transfers in the euro area were executed using a pan-European payment instrument.

Trend
If this trend continues, the full benefits or implementation of the SEPA would only be felt after more than 25 years. Only rapid migration to pan-European SEPA credit transfers and direct debits, will generate the full benefits of an integrated payments market. The proposed Regulation aims to ensure a quick and smooth migration to pan-European credit transfers and direct debits by phasing out the existing national payment instruments.

In order to ensure interoperability, the use of certain common standards and technical requirements such as the use of international bank account numbers (IBAN), bank identifier codes (BIC) and a financial services messaging standard (ISO 20022 XML) will be mandatory for all bank account payments in euro in the EU. The proposed regulation also takes into account user concerns such as the possibility to limit a direct debit collection to a certain amount and/or frequency of payments. Banks and companies which send out a large number of bills (for example electricity or telecommunications providers) are encouraged to adopt measures to make SEPA migration as easy as possible for bank account holders.

The proposed Regulation also aims to increase transparency and competition between payment services providers and between payment services themselves, notably through the ban on hidden fees between banks for direct debit transactions, which are currently charged in six Member States (Spain, France, Sweden, Belgium, Portugal and Italy).

Background information

- Press release: Commission sets deadlines for migration to SEPA
- FAQs: Full SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) Migration
- EC proposal: Proposal for a Regulation establishing technical requirements for credit transfers and direct debits in euros and amending Regulation (EC) No 924/2009

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Commission sets deadlines for migration to SEPA.

In a critical paper on the Sepa Direct Debit scheme – scheduled for introduction in November this year – the Payment Systems End User Committee (EUC), says businesses have little incentive to switch to the new payments instrument.

The Committee, which represents the views of eight major business trade associations, is also calling for an urgent review of the Sepa governance structure.

“Up to now, the payment users’ community has been more or less ignored,” say the report’s authors. “Sepa cannot achieve its goals unless users are fully involved in its construction. End-users, payment system providers and regulators must all be involved on an equal footing in a new Sepa governance structure.”

On Direct Debit, the EUC says that the current scheme proposed by the European Payments Council (CMF) offers fewer services than the existing national schemes. According to the EUC, end users have little incentive to switch to the new system. The position paper instead proposes a “CMF+” scheme offering a basic service coupled with tailored optional services at an extra cost.

EUC spokesman Olivier Brissaud says: “One year and a half after the launch of the first Sepa product, less than 2% of all credit transfers are made using the new system. Direct debit, which is the second Sepa product, risks a similar fate unless corrective action is taken before its launch in November this year.”

The European Commission is currently contemplating the introduction of a final end-date for the migration from legacy national payment systems as a means to stimulate wider uptake of the new Sepa-compliant intruments.

However, the EUC cautions that such a move could destabilise the entire Sepa project.

“No decision on end dates should be taken until the remaining areas of disagreement have been resolved to the satisfaction of end users,” states the report. “The setting of arbitrary end dates by legislation would result in a failure of Sepa.”

Read the full report:

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Payment systems users warn of risks of SEPA failure.

The introduction of the new tool is expected to speed compliance with Sepa by offering a single, co-ordinated system for BIC and Iban conversion that all Dutch banks can roll out to their account holders.

Users can request the correct Iban and BIC information using an online web service, the telephone via a voice response system or via an SMS message. A dedicated corporate Web service allows Dutch businesses to update batch files of Bbans (Basic Bank Account Numbers) with the correct corresponding Ibans and BICs for Sepa compliance.

The system was developed by Experian and commissioned by the Foundation Iban Service NL, on behalf of the Dutch banking community.

The introduction of the new coding has been identified as a potential stumbling block to Sepa uptake among European citizens and businesses.

Jim Conning, managing director, Experian Payments, comments: “We…have the European footprint to provide similar services to other EU banking communities who want to facilitate the move to Sepa payments smoothly”.

Source: sibosonline.com

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Dutch banks introduce national Iban and BIC conversion system.

Read the ‘SEPA Credit Transfer XML customer-to-bank Implementation Guidelines for the Netherlands’

The initiating group ‘SEPA Migration NL’ have also come up with the Dutch Implementation Guidelines set to create a ‘level playing field’ for their corporate customers and software vendors active in SEPA.

The Dutch Association of Banks strongly recommends the use of the Dutch bank-customer SCT Implementation Guidelines to banks and their corporate clients.

The use of the Dutch Implementation Guidelines does not exclude the use of Belgian or other Implementation Guidelines. A bank can make additional appointments with its customers.

The new bank-client standards will replace the existing, because they do not meet all the SEPA requirements. Thus, BIC and IBAN cannot be used.

Source: www.sepanl.nl

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: SEPA bank-client standard available.

Internal Market and Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy said: “It is important to have sound, efficient and secure payment systems in order to ensure a proper functioning of the internal market. With the development of our policies in the area of payments, in particular in the context of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), we have a growing need for regular and high-level stakeholder input at the earliest stage of our policy-making. New and complex areas of activity, such as the prevention of payment fraud or the development of innovative payments, will also mean new needs for specialist expertise.”

The call for applications will be open until 6 February 2009. It is addressed to experts in payments, including fraud prevention, coming in particular from the payment industry and the payment users. A maximum of 50 experts will be selected.

The PSMEG’s tasks will be: to assist the Commission in the preparation of legislative acts or policy initiatives regarding payment systems, including fraud prevention issues related to payment industry and users; to provide insight concerning the practical implementation of that policy; and to exchange views on up-to-date best practices and ensure monitoring of potential issues of concern for the market. The group will meet in Brussels and will be chaired by the Internal Market and Services DG of the European Commission.

Below you can read the publication about the Payment Systems Marrket Expert Group:

Source: European Commission

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: European Commission creates Payment Systems Market Expert Group.

The bank will benefit from a broad range of services, prior to the launch of SEPA DD payments in November 2009, including a payments capture process which removes the need for unnecessary intervention by directly recording clients’ payments. It is hoped the pilot, introduced in Q1 2009, will assist migration and cut infrastructure and development costs.

A management module that can centralise critical mandate information on behalf of the bank and its clients is a key component of the installation. The pilot is intended to ease the migration towards a SEPA-compliant infrastructure.

Commenting on the pilot, Joseph Laughlin, a member of the management board at BAWAG, said: “The initiative will demonstrate to our corporate customers that the bank is ahead of the market. The value-added services, such as payments capture, validation, mandate management and exceptions management, will make a real impact with our customers.

Source: fstech.co.uk

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: SEPA Direct Debit pilot scheme launched with Austria’s BAWAG Bank.

The European Union has plans for a single euro payments system or SEPA to give its 495 million consumers cheap payments of bills and purchases in euros from a single bank account. The move is designed to encourage cross-border competition and spur the creation of jobs and growth, the EU’s executive European Commission has said.

The project requires the bloc’s 8,000 banks to invest billions of euros changing their systems to comply with common SEPA standards on credit transfers, direct debits and payment cards. SEPA-compliant credit transfers were launched in January by banks across the EU but the French Banking Federation (FBF) said on Thursday its members have suspended work pending clarification from European authorities on tariffs, in particular charging for services that banks supply to each other, it said in a statement.

‘As long as these rules are not clarified, the French banks, like many European banks, cannot start the work on the timetable because like all businesses, banks need to know their economic and legal risks,’ the statement said.

Banks across the EU are worrying how the new services would be paid for after last December when the Commission said MasterCard’s interchange fee on its cross-border credit cards and Maestro direct debit cards violated EU competition rules.

The interchange fee is charged to retailers for processing a card payment but retailers have dubbed it a tax on consumers. MasterCard is appealing the decision, a process that will take months but the November 2009 deadline for a full switch to SEPA products in Europe is looming.

The Commission and the European Central Bank has said banks could use an interchange fee on direct debits but only for an ‘interim period’ and if it was justified — a move that banks say has ‘destabilised’ their planned SEPA business models.

Source: www.reuters.com

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: French banks down tools on EU-wide payment project.

Read the sixth SEPA progress report of the European Central Bank below:

There have been many new developments since the publication of the fifth progress report in July 2007. The successful launch of SEPA in January 2008 was a major achievement. With the introduction of the SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) on 28 January 2008, the first benefits of SEPA have materialised for banks and, more importantly, for the end-users of payment services. National SEPA implementation and migration plans have been drafted and published. Most automated clearing houses that were processing credit transfers in euro are now able to process SCTs. In January 2008, SEPA was also started for card payments, but more effort is needed in this area if the goals of the SEPA project are to be achieved, for example the emergence of at least one additional European card scheme.

Preparations for the third type of payment instrument, SEPA Direct Debit (SDD), have continued over the past year, resulting in the adoption of the Rulebooks. The launch of the SDD is scheduled for 1 November 2009. Nevertheless, the launch of this important SEPA instrument needs to be accompanied by clarification between the banking sector and the relevant competition authorities with regard to the possible interbank pricing models. This issue needs to be resolved urgently. Finally, considerable progress has been made in the fields of e-payments and mobile payments.

The areas which require most attention now are: a) the timely launch of the SEPA Direct Debit on 1 November 2009; b) the emergence of an additional European card scheme; and c) measures to stimulate migration to SEPA Credit Transfer and SEPA Direct Debit, including the setting of a realistic, but ambitious end-date for national credit transfers and direct debits.

The key messages of this report, which should be followed up by the market to ensure the success of SEPA, are as follows:

1. Banks need to ensure more communication, clear product offerings and the delivery of a consistent customer experience in order to stimulate the uptake of SEPA Credit Transfer by all customers, with public administrations, in particular, becoming early adopters.

2. The remaining obstacles to a timely launch of SEPA Direct Debit should be overcome. To move forward, solutions must be found urgently, e.g. by providing clarity on the launch date, ensuring the continued validity of existing mandates, meeting customer requirements, increasing communication efforts and closing the debate on the multilateral interchange fee.

3. SEPA needs to enable end-to-end straight-through-processing (whereby payments are processed smoothly  nd without manual intervention) and to move beyond core and basic products by embracing innovative products and services, such as m-payments, e-payments, e-invoicing, etc.

4. The setting of a realistic, but ambitious end-date for the migration to SCT and SDD is a necessary step in order to reap the benefits of SEPA early.

5. A more ambitious approach needs to be taken towards the SEPA for Cards and supporting market initiatives to create a European card scheme.

6. The European payment industry should ensure that it has adequate influence over the SEPA cards standards, which should preferably be non-proprietary standards – The EPC is to advance the SEPA cards standardisation programme.

7. Security is the basis for trust in SEPA payments, and all stakeholders need to continue and even intensify their efforts.

8. Infrastructures are leading by example, but the remaining restrictions on interoperability should be removed.

9. Good governance of the SEPA project requires changes to the EPC’s mandate and organisation. One short-term step would be to strengthen the EPC’s Secretariat so that it can adequately support the EPC in its many tasks. In the medium to longer term, more substantial changes are needed to improve the EPC’s effectiveness, transparency and accountability.

10. Clarity and certainty with regard to the SEPA tasks: the SEPA implementation and migration milestones provide a list of concrete tasks that the Eurosystem expects to be fulfilled to ensure the success of the SEPA project.

The addressees of the report are not only the banks and future payment institutions, but all relevant stakeholders, such as corporates, public administrations, merchants and consumers.

The report is available in other official Community languages in due course.

Source: European Central Bank

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: SEPA and e-Invoicing: ECB progress report 2008.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: European Commission: webpage on e-invoicing.

The study points out that SEPA compliance has exerted a high toll on financial institutions, all the more so since SEPA provisions actually cut back on banks’ payment revenues by stipulating that cross-border payment fee levels should match those of domestic transactions fees. As a result, the study claims, banks need to come up with alternate strategies to compensate for lost payment revenues. The answer, the research points out, could lie in the so-called ‘value-added’ services such as cross-border electronic invoicing and supply chain financing.

Electronic invoicing comes with a series of benefits ranging from process savings to lower fraud and credit risks, faster payments and improved cash flow, lower IT costs due to standardised invoicing, payments and account interfaces and higher productivity. As a result, the study points out that e-invoicing could hold the key to a higher degree of corporate profitability within SEPA and pave the way for another profit-generating value-added service, namely supply chain automation. The latter renders banks more aware of their customers’ own financial processes and cash flows, allowing them to extend credit facilities to their corporate customers and build additional revenues.

The research was conducted by IT service provider TietoEnator.

Source: Tietoenator

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Study: E-invoicing and supply chain financing to boost bank revenues after SEPA.

Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) adoption promised to deliver on the grand visions of European harmonisation and a cashless society. But in reality it has been regulatory compliance that has driven adoption for most banks. Company directors and corporate finance departments have asked ‘what’s in it for us?’ and been met with a wall of silence. It is no surprise that financial institutions have been reluctant to engage with the directive. But the vision of eSEPA, an electronic approach to SEPA, is beginning to attract interest.

Using SEPA rules as a driver, banks can create an electronic financial supply chain that is faster and more cost effective for customers, primarily those within corporate finance. Beyond compliance this is an opportunity to revolutionise the financial supply chain and create a ‘win win’.

This progression is long overdue. In a recent report ‘Is European Regulation the Stepmother of Invention?’ TowerGroup research director Gareth Lodge notes that innovation in payments has been lethargic at best. “Many of the processes today are largely based on what was done yesterday – or rather yesteryear. SEPA gives the opportunity to change not just legacy solutions but legacy thinking. The regulation offers an opportunity for banks to reinvent their operations with an eye toward the future, not the past.” The key element for corporates is the chance to reinvent the financial supply chain. Building services around SEPA standards will capitalise on existing investments and attract new business.

Source: Accountingweb

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Corporate finance benefits from SEPA going electronic.

The initial focus on Sepa was cost, but as banks seek to recoup the investment they have made in compliance, attention has turned to revenues. Europe’s banks are at the start of a road that will take them towards e-invoicing, supply chain finance, real-time information and the ability to compete in a rapidly changing environment.

This TietoEnator white paper outlines the challenges and features case studies with Royal Bank of Scotland and Swedbank.

To read the full story, download now

Source: Sibos Online

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Banking on Sepa.

The inspiration for the Summit was PayStream’s consulting, research reports, and one specific study our research division has been conducting for the last several months regarding the state of AP automation in U. S. companies. The findings were unveiled at the Summit and the eInvoicing Adoption Survey Report released this week. LINK

Common themes emerged from the conference delegates. Many admitted that imaging and OCR were great first steps, but they found it was time to take their AP departments to the next level in automation and to begin exploring advanced options like electronic invoicing.

Organizations just getting started on the path to automation expressed relief when they discovered many of the options that technology providers offered could be tailored and implemented a la carte. You don’t have to automate the entire process all at once.

Of course, everyone wants to know how to make the implementation process a success, but making that happen depends on variables, often times out of your control. This was addressed in the morning panel discussions when panelists offered anecdotes for how to be successful.

The moral of the stories was: 1. Executive sponsorship and cross departmental collaboration is key. You need all departments on board and you need your executive leadership to fully understand and support the project to have any chance of automating your accounts payable, and 2. Take time prior to implementation to get an accurate estimate of the current state of your payables, even if this means stretching your timeline an additional 3-6 months.

And the question addressed most often; how do we get our suppliers on board? The answer was a unanimous recommendation to approach your vendor pool with an air of collaboration and be willing to work with individual vendors who may be on separate platforms. Often times, a solution provider will handle supplier on-boarding for you.

Now, getting back to the survey results from the PayStream eInvoicing Adoption Survey Report. Amid all the findings, we see most clearly that paper is on the way out and it’s on the way out fast. By 2010 we anticipate electronic invoices exceeding the number of paper invoices processed by Fortune 500 companies in the U. S.

Source: PayStream Voices

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: PayStream Summit Wrap Up: AP Automation Inevitable by 2010.

Microsoft’s treasury would like to migrate all of its financial messaging onto the XML-based standard, however the tardiness of banks and their own adoption of the standard for their treasury services, means that the project will be an “evolution” that will involve several phases, according to Ed Barrie, group manager, Treasury at Microsoft.

“The XML standard will give us more enriched data at a transactional level which we can put into specifically defined fields in our Enterprise Resource Planning systems,” says Barrie. “This will give us better STP and a single viewpoint for all of our payments information.

Microsoft’s treasury department handles global credit and collections, cash management and account opening and closing for the software giant covering 1100 bank accounts and 130 banking partners.

Microsoft is concentrating on its treasury statements primarily, before applying the ISO20022 standard to its payment flows. However the project’s success will be heavily dependant on the progress of its 130 banking partners.

“By next year we expect to have at least two banks converted and hope to have six or more,” says Barrie.

At least the ISO standard will not face unwelcome competition. According to Barrie, there will not be a rival standard to ISO20022. “It is the format that supports Sepa payments in Europe so that is driving adoption but it has mostly been on the bank to bank payments side. What we need to see is this adoption spread to the bank to customer side.”

Despite the slow progress, Barrie is confident that by next year’s Sibos event, there will have been some significant developments, helped by demonstrable evidence of the benefits of implementing ISO20022.

“We are now in the initial analysis stage but by next year we will see more tangible case studies that show a return on investment, the percentage of straight-through-processing and the level of cost involved.”

Source: Sibos Online

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Microsoft treasury pushes on with ISO20022 project as banks slow progress.

European e-invoicing solution
ICBPI Group and Equens will cooperate to bridge local solutions, enabling banks, corporates and service providers to extend their reach in Europe. Equens will bridge domestic service providers in order to create European coverage in the distribution of e-invoicing. Isabel will contribute its e-invoicing knowledge and experience. Other parties are invited to join this initiative in order to expand the e-invoicing community as soon as possible.

The European Commission aims to establish a mature e-invoicing framework by 2010 at the latest. E-invoicing is a field that potentially offers excellent opportunities. Over 90 percent of all invoicing worldwide is still performed on paper. This usually involves an extremely inefficient process of printing, distributing, scanning and archiving paper and re-entering data. There are now hundreds of initiatives in place for electronic invoicing on a national level. A specific, joint and international initiative is therefore an important next step.

According to Equens, invoicing should be as easy as paying. Michael Steinbach, Chairman of Equens’ Board of Directors: “We strongly believe that staying ahead in the European payment-processing market requires looking beyond the payments discipline as such. It requires in-depth knowledge of the future needs of banks and their customers, of technology and of applications.”

“As a market leader in payments and electronic invoicing services in Italy, we are focused on providing the best services in the Customer-to-Bank area,” says Giuseppe Capponcelli, Managing Director of ICBPI Group. “This cross-border joint initiative on e-invoicing will allow us to be a first mover in the European scenario and to enhance our corporate banking services. The first International e-invoicing pilot is a win-win initiative that allows the founding partners to extend their reachability to other important trade markets, as well as enabling ICBPI to offer competitive advantages to banks and more benefits to their corporate customers.”

As one of the leading providers of e-invoicing and electronic banking services in Belgium, Isabel is the first participant in this European e-invoicing initiative. Isabel will draw on its technical and business expertise in the SME market to contribute to the success of this e-invoicing pilot project. “This pilot project is a great opportunity to enhance our experience in electronic invoicing and to promote interoperability at European level,” says Luc Van Hecke, International Sales Manager of Isabel S.A.

About Equens
Equens SE is the first truly pan-European, full-service payment processor. As one of the largest and most innovative payment processors in Europe, Equens is leading the market for future-proof payments and card processing solutions. Thanks to an extensive and competitive service portfolio and a flexible, customer-orientated approach, the company seamlessly meets the requirements of the European payments market. With an annual volume of 7.3 billion payments and 2.1 billion POS and ATM transactions, Equens has a market share of more than 15% within the euro zone. By continuously pursuing further growth and translating the achieved synergy benefits and economies of scale into advantages for the customer, the company contributes to the efficiency of European payments.

For additional information, please visit http://www.equens.com

About ICBPI
The ICBPI Group is made up of highly specialised companies focusing on the design, planning and management of services for banks, financial institutions and insurance companies. ICBPI S.p.A. is specialised in traditional and innovative payment services, as well as financial and administrative services offered according to a BPO model. ICBPI also offers innovative and efficient solutions for the outsourced management of domestic and international payment systems (SEPA-compliant) for banks, Public Administrations and other companies. Key Client is focused on electronic payment systems (Cards, POS and ATM) and with HelpPhone on customer care services through a contact center. Oasi is a market leader in services such as managed systems, financial transaction tracking, reporting to the Central Bank, anti-money laundering and regulation compliance, retirement insurance fund management and data security.

For additional information, please visit http://www.icbpi.it

About Isabel
Isabel is a professional software developer and service provider specialising in bank automation and electronic invoicing. Isabel’s solutions are used by many financial institutions and associations all over Europe. 30 banks and 110,000 companies in Belgium are using Isabel online services. The Zoomit application developed by Isabel is integrated with the Internet banking solutions of the most important banks. It enables millions of consumers and SMEs to take advantage of e-invoicing technology. Isabel was founded in 1995 and has 130 employees.

For more information, please visit http://www.isabel.eu

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Joint initiative to create a European e-invoicing solution.

Equens says it will work with ICBPI to “bridge local solutions” in order to enable banks, corporates and service providers to extend their services in Europe.

Commenting on the project Giuseppe Capponcelli, MD, ICBPI Group, says: “This cross-border joint initiative on e-invoicing will allow us to be a first mover in the European scenario and to enhance our corporate banking services. The first international e-invoicing pilot is a win-win initiative that allows the founding partners to extend their reachability to other important trade markets.”

Isabel – which provides electronic banking and invoicing services – is the first to sign up, although other service providers will be invited to join the initiative says Equens.

Says Luc Van Hecke, international sales manager of Isabel: “This pilot project is a great opportunity to enhance our experience in electronic invoicing and to promote interoperability at European level.”

Equens estimates that over 90% of all invoicing worldwide is still paper-based.

The European Commission said last year that the introduction of the European electronic invoicing (EII) network could reduce supply chain costs by EUR243 billion across Europe and help to streamline business processes and drive innovation.

The introduction of an e-invoicing system for public sector firms in Denmark has saved an estimated EUR100-134 million per year, according to a report by an EC task force on e-invoicing.

The EC said it would set up a steering committee to oversee the establishment of a common invoicing framework that would allow businesses across the region to send invoices and receive corresponding payments electronically.

However separate research released by Sterling Commerce at Sibos has found that European businesses are being held back from implementing e-invoicing systems due to the complexity of addressing regulatory compliance requirements and legislation.

The survey of 400 IT managers in the UK, France, Germany and Italy conducted by Vanson Bourne found that the most pressing “e-invoicing concern” for businesses across Europe is “compliance with national e-invoicing legislation”.

In addition, more than half of the companies surveyed admitted they were concerned about supporting disparate e-invoicing systems across multiple geographies.

Chris Hayes, senior product marketing manager, Sterling Commerce, says: “The benefits of moving from paper-based to e-invoicing are widely known and accepted, yet the reality for many European businesses is that even for e-invoicing projects which do receive budget approval, a dependence on multiple solutions to handle compliance with multiple VAT and tax regulations across different territories, is ultimately undermining project success.”

Source: Sibos Online

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Equens partners ICBPI and Isabel on European e-invoicing pilot.

In particular, it rules that any national card scheme can be deemed to be compliant with the SCF if the cards it issues are technically and commercially capable of being accepted everywhere in the Sepa territory. Earlier interpretations of the Framework appeared to imply that a card scheme could only be deemed SCF-compliant if it covered all 31 Member states. 

The ECB and Commission had expressed fears that such an interpretation would create a de facto monopoly for Mastercard’s Maestro debit card system and had been encouraging banks to set up an alternative scheme in competition. The ECB had become particularly concerned about moves by some banking associations to ditch domestic schemes in favour of internationally-accepted programmes by MasterCard and Visa. 

The new guidance from the EPC clarifies the situation and makes it clear that the Sepa provisions for cards will allow many – possibly national and regional – schemes to develop into ‘SCF compliant’ schemes. 

Nonetheless, the Commission warns that work is still needed by the EPC to develop a full set of technical standards allowing any card to be used, for payments in euro, potentially anywhere in the Sepa area. 

“This is a precondition for the expansion of existing domestic debit card schemes across the Sepa countries, for the emergence of (a) new European card scheme(s), for pan-European processing and certification, and for market consolidation,” says the Commission in a statement. 

“More competition would be very welcome,” the Commission continues. “The success of new initiatives will depend crucially on banks not simply selling the national debit card scheme to the existing schemes.” 

The European Payment Council’s Q&A.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: European Payment Council clears up Sepa for Cards confusion.

This white paper reports the results from the FullSEPA project which concentrates on promoting and researching electronic payments and electronic  invoicing. FullSEPA is the first phase in the Real-Time Economy (RTE) program. The RTE program is a four-year program focusing on real-time technologies and business transactions. It is conducted in collaboration between the Helsinki School of Economics and TietoEnator, and it is funded by Tekes – Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation through Verso – Vertical Software Solutions programme. 

Download the white paper (pdf)

Source: Tekes

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: eInvoicing initiatives in Finland and in the EU.

Robert Heisterborg, global head of payments and cash management at ING wholesale banking, describes the offering as ‘a combination of the strengths of both organisations’. ‘ING has a leading position in the European payments and cash management area, and Atos Origin is a well established company helping out various banks and corporates in their IT environments,’ he says. According to Rob Pols, CEO of Atos Origin in the Netherlands, the vendor ‘saw a real opportunity in what ING has built with its SEPA factory’, and believes ‘payments are a very important strategic direction for Atos Origin as well as for ING. We definitely saw an area where we could both benefit from each other’s experience’.

The partnership will see ING act as the payments processor to corporate clients and to banks, with Atos Origin being the IT solution provider and dealing with the connectivity into the bank’s SEPA factory. ‘We know our bank; we know how we’ve organised it. We don’t know other banks and we’re not in a position to help other banks in changing their environment. That’s the strong part of teaming up with a partner like Atos,’ explains Heisterborg.

The target for this partnership is small to mid-sized European banks and corporates, but also big global banks where the euro is a relatively small currency. ING has made a considerable investment in its SEPA payments factory, something that this partnership should help it to get a return on investment from. For Pols, the question facing other banks and corporates is, ‘do they want to make that kind of investment when they can hook up with ING and Atos to make use of what has already been built?’.

Despite the obvious hype around the partnership, Heisterborg is taking a ‘realistic view’. ‘Taking these types of processes and ring fencing them, then airlifting part of the whole payments processing system and sharing it with another environment is not easy. There’s a lot of work to do.’

The firms have identified a list of 80 prospects, and Pols confirms they have ‘engaged with some’ and are ‘in bidding stages’ with others. He believes that the first win for the new partnership is ‘not too far away’.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Atos and ING tie-up for payments.