OpenPEPPOL is celebrating an important milestone as Ricoh Nederland B.V., a Dutch service provider currently setting up a PEPPOL Access Point, became the 100th new OpenPEPPOL member.
Growing faster than any other e-interoperability initiative in Europe (perhaps even globally), we thought it would be nice to write down some facts and figures on OpenPEPPOL. Including the vision of the European Commission on whether/how PEPPOL could be the EU wide system for e-invoicing in public procurement.
EU impact assessment on e-invoicing in public procurement
The facts and figures underneath show an serious autonomous drive towards EU interoperability in e-procurement and e-invoicing. However that does not mean that the European Commission has (yet) acknowledged OpenPEPPOL as THE basis for an EU-wide e-invoicing system.
Page 75 of the document “Impact Assessment accompanying the proposal for a directive on electronic invoicing in public procurement”, states:
“However, since this [OpenPEPPOL] is a project which has been developed within a consortium which includes several Member States, and as it offers solutions which are in direct competition with some e-invoicing services provided by private service providers, the current initiative cannot directly recommend the PEPPOL solution as the basis of an EU-wide e-invoicing system, in line with the principle of “technical neutrality”.
Still, if enough providers connect with OpenPEPPOL, it can easily become the defacto EU-wide e-invoicing system, regardless of policy (ambitions).
Facts and figures on OpenPEPPOL
1. Membership types and current numbers
Membership of OpenPEPPOL is open to several types of organisations. The current distribution of the 100 member is added between bracket:
- [7] Contracting authorities (public sector buyers), suppliers and other end-users of PEPPOL specifications, building blocks and services
- [4 soon 5]Government entities acting as PEPPOL Authorities within the PEPPOL network
- [28] Service Metadata Publisher (SMP) Providers
- [72] Access Point Providers
- [2] eSignature and eID Validation Service Providers
- [1] Pre-award Service Providers
- [7] Observers and other organisations with a shared interest in the activities of OpenPEPPOL
2. Geographical coverage
Organisations in Russia, the United Stated and 18 European countries have implemented OpenPEPPOL.
3. Interoperability domains
OpenPEPPOL activities focus on developing and maintaining specifications for standards-based e-Procurement in Europe. Four coordinating communities are currently active in their respective areas:
- Pre-Award
- Post-Award
- Transport Infrastructure
- e-Signatures
- e-Invoicing (2.7 million einvoices in first three months of 20140
- e-Delivery
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