On 19 December 2013 the ECB launched the Euro Retail Payments Board (ERPB). This new entity, which replaced the SEPA Council, aims to foster the development of an integrated, innovative and competitive market for retail payments in euro in the European Union. More details on the ERPB can be found here.

A working group from the ERPB received a mandate to investigate how to harmonise the EIPP/EBPP (Electronic Invoice/Bill Presentment and Payment) services related to retail payments. This initial exploratory mission set out the European context, identified the success factors, the obstacles faced and the working group’s options for any future developments that could foster the success of the EIPP solutions. In November 2016 the working group issued their preliminary report.

At the ERPB meeting June 2017, the EIPP working group will release an updated status report. And it is expected that during the November 2017 ERPB gathering, the working group will publish its minimum requirements for business rules and technical standards. The ERPB expects that with these proposals in place:

• EIPP will become a more convenient service with faster collection of receivables and a reduction in errors and fraud
• EIPP solutions will be interoperable throughout Europe, making them scale naturally and easily to appeal to both EIPP providers, businesses and consumers.

The current working group brings together ERPB member associations and e-invoicing service provider associations with representatives of national central banks, a delegate from the European Central Bank and an observer from the European Commission. The European Association of Corporate Treasurers / Business Europe and EPC are co-chairs.

Editor’s note

The interim report acknowledges the work of CEN on the European Norm 16931 and the role of the EMSFEI (EU Multi Stakeholder Forum on E-Invoicing). So it will be interesting to see how the ERPB will incorporate the mandatory use of UBL and CII e-invoice syntaxes in the proposed business rules and technical standards. Maybe this is an attempt to revive the use of the ISO XML 20022 syntax? We just wait and see.

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