B2B Fintech - Payments, Supply Chain Finance & E-Invoicing Guide 2016

B2B Fintech: Payments, Supply Chain
Finance & E-Invoicing Guide 2016

INSIGHTS INTO THE B2B PAYMENTS, SUPPLY CHAIN FINANCE &
E-INVOICING MARKET
The Guide offers invaluable market insights for This guide, carefully documented, keeps readers
professionals in the B2B payments, e-invoicing and supply informed about the latest developments and opportunities
chain finance space in Fintech, B2B payments, SCF, and e-invoicing
Friso Spinhoven | Senior Manager | Innopay Michiel Steeman | Co-founder | SCF Community
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B2B Payments, Supply Chain Finance
& E-Invoicing Market Guide 2016
INSIGHTS INTO THE B2B PAYMENTS, SUPPLY CHAIN

FINANCE & E-INVOICING MARKET
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Editors
Mirela Amariei
Tiberiu Avram
Daniela Ciobanu
Oana Ifrim
Anda Kania
Emil Juverdeanu
Sebastian Lupu
Madalina Mocanu
Andreea Nita
Adriana Screpnic
Mihaela Mihaila
RELEASE VERSION 1.0

MAY 2016
COPYRIGHT © THE PAYPERS BV
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
TEL: +31 20 893 4315

FAX: +31 20 658 0671
MAIL: EDITOR@THEPAYPERS.COM
Editor’s letter
McKinsey started off its “Global Payments 2015: A Healthy In the case of blockchain, banks actively look for ways to
Industry Confronts Disruption” report by outlining the four integrate this technology into their business. Yet, despite the
potential disruptions that will alter the payments industry during efforts of financial institutions to find out how much business
the next years. First change: nonbank digital entrants will they can gain by adopting blockchain technology, it is still not
trans¬form the customer experience, reshaping the payments clear if it’s just a(nother) hype or if it corresponds to similar
and broader financial services landscape. The pressure put on interest from corporations.
banks caused by technology giants and innovative startups
reaches a whole new dimension. And although, generally Also, finally, banks & corporates are starting to make use of their
speaking, startups have not been a significant threat to banks in data and turn that into business profit. The financial services
the past, McKinsey believes things will be different this time “due industry is currently facing a wave of entrepreneurial disruption,
to the nature of the attackers, the prominence of smartphones disintermediation, and digital innovation, so, how to face one
as a channel, and rapidly evolving customer expectations”. of the potentially biggest challenge ever – the information
The second change is reflected in the modernization of domestic management?
payments infrastructures. There are approx. 15 countries where
this modernization has already happened and many others plan • Organisational challenges: developing a sense of ownership
to do so in the near future. The third trend intently looks at becomes top priority.
digitization in transaction banking. Retail banking has experienced
impressive progress in payments. However, the most interesting Against the historically known rigid organisational structure and
transformation is currently happening in the B2B space as you hierarchy, banks & corporations are trying to break down silos
will discover in this Guide. Finally, the fourth potential disruption and leverage conversation across departments with the ultimate
comes in the form of cross-border payments inefficiencies. result of having ‘one version of the truth’, a ‘single agenda’, a
These, in the minds of innovative companies, present themselves ‘plan’. More often than ever knowing who owns the final decision
as great opportunities. of implementing a (commercial) payments solution or a financing
service emerges as top priority. Questions such as “How to gain
To these four trends, I would add several others that have a management support for implementing certain programs?”,
tremendous impact on the overall industry for those already “Who are the relevant stakeholders to make seamless
exploring them. For this, we looked at how parties are handling payments and finance a reality?” and “What are their role in the
the changes (and challenges) in technology, organizational programme?”, etc. are no longer left unanswered.
ownership, regulation, M&A, standardization.
• R egulation (keeping a watchful eye on regulation & law is
• Technology: developing a sense of urgency towards ‘doing also crucial, but keep in mind that regulation that supports the
something’ with the available financial technology is essential. growth of your business is already in place.
Fintech is already here, so companies must pass the testing
phase towards implementation and solving actual problems. We often hear that regulation should level the playing field for
all market participants. If this is really the case, find out in this
Fintech companies ‘attack friction’ and leverage innovative report. Explore the Guide for up-to-date information about
technologies (e.g. mobile apps, application programming the PSD2, Prompt Payment Code, Directive 2014/55/EU for
interfaces (APIs), cloud technology, crypto technology, artificial E-invoicing and Procurement, etc.
intelligence and data analytics) to address convenience, user
experience and functionality. They also ‘attack’ the limitations • M&A (scale/capabilities/speeding up innovation): In terms
that originate from traditional banking products and services. of value, some of the industry's largest deals during 2015
occurred in the payments segment.
3 B2B FINTECH: PAYMENTS, SUPPLY CHAIN FINANCE & E-INVOICING GUIDE 2016 | INTRODUCTION
The industry's highest value transactions include: Global In the second part, you can find in-depth company profiles
Payments' announced the USD 788 million acquisition of that map out key players in the global e-invoicing and supply
Heartland Payment Systems, a provider of payment processing chain finance space. The company profiles section comes with
services to merchants, PayPal acquired Xoom Corporation, a essential information about markets (target group, specialisation,
digital money transfer provider, Optimal Payments bought Skrill etc.), proposition (processes facilitated, pricing model, solution
with USD 1,2 billion, Alibaba.com acquired Paytm for USD 680 description, etc.), services (dynamic discounting, legal compliance
million, BBVA acquired Simple for USD 118 million. One of tools, AP / AR management, standards supported), etc.
the most interesting moves, however, might be MasterCard’s
acquisition of VocaLink. 13 banks serve as shareholders This Market Guide, carefully created by The Paypers, puts
for VocaLink, which have reportedly approved the deal with together the most recent and relevant information in payments
MasterCard to enter into the negotiation stage, several media & finance. The guide brings a fresh perspective about the
outlets reported. This deal is projected to be worth GBP 1 billion industry, puts in focus the potential impact of the latest industry
(roughly USD 1.4 billion) and would involve the UK`s largest developments and opportunities, keeping the readers well
banks — Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal informed and always a step ahead.
Bank of Scotland, which collectively own 80% of VocaLink.
This guide wouldn’t exist without all the people who matter most:
VocaLink processed 1 billion transactions in 2015, which the authors, our media partners and you, our faithful reader. We
amounts to half of all UK payments and also processed 90% thank you all for your continuous support. This report has been
of salaries and at least 70% of all household`s bills and state put together with the utmost care. If you discover that, despite
benefits. The reason why MasterCard is interested in VocaLink our efforts, it features information that is unclear or erroneous, we
is the desire to scale internationally. So far, MasterCard captures very much appreciate your feedback using editor@thepaypers.
only 5% of the debit card payments in the UK, thus, it points to a com email address.
desire to compete with Visa abroad.
Mirela Amariei
Furthermore, in 2015 we have seen a different dynamic in the Senior Editor, The Paypers
incumbents vs fintechs war. Payments & finance service providers,
banks and corporations are either investing in fintech players,
acquire them, partner them or build from scratch labs/hubs/
accelerators to spur innovation (more on this, later in the Guide).
• Optimisation, standardization: Last, but not least, it’s time to
optimise, standardise, revise.
There is almost a tangible feeling that ‘time is now’ for revamping
old infrastructure, honing processes, enhancing operations,
perking up data analysis, augmenting reporting, etc. You’ve
heard it before, certainly, but it bears repeating. The time for
innovation is now. But (sic!) not before the industry comes to
terms (literally) regarding what supply chain finance actually
means, what is meant by late payment, etc.
In the first part of the guide, we investigate the initiatives in
the field of B2B payments, supply chain finance & e-invoicing
describing various models for digital finance, as presented by key
industry players, either in the form of an exclusive interview or an
elaborate article.
4 B2B FINTECH: PAYMENTS, SUPPLY CHAIN FINANCE & E-INVOICING GUIDE 2016 | INTRODUCTION
Table of contents
3 Editor’s Letter
7 Four Trends in B2B Payments and Financing Innovation | Mirela Amariei, Senior Editor, The Paypers
11 Thought Leadership
12 B2B payments
13 Exclusive interview with Andrew P. Reid | Managing Director and Head of Cash Management Corporates, EMEA,
Global Transaction Banking, Deutsche Bank
15 Blockchain in B2B Payments | Enrico Camerinelli, Senior Analyst, Aite Group
17 The Emerging Internet of Payments | Roger Bass, Founder, CEO and Principal, Traxiant
19 Blockchain
20 B2B Blockchain-based Payments: Can it Beat the Banks? | Kris Wielens, Senior Consultant, Orchard Finance
22 The Three-Phased Transformation of Supply Chain Finance with Blockchain Technology | Gys Hough, Consultant,
Innopay
25 Innovation in payments & banking

26 Exclusive interview with Wim Raymaekers | Head of Banking Market, SWIFT
28 Exclusive interview with Markus Straußfeld | Head of International Cash Management Sales, UniCredit
30 Making One-Click Finance Possible – Who Are the Relevant Stakeholders and How They Should Work Together |
Susie West, CEO and Founder, sharedserviceslink
32 Exclusive interview with Marten Nelson | VP Marketing, Token
33 The Future of Banking Innovation and the Fintech Startups Journey | Falguni Desai, Founder & Managing Director,
Future Asia Ventures
36 The power of data & traceability

37 Track and Trace of Invoices for Working Capital Optimisation | Prof. Dr. Michael Henke, Director, Enterprise Logistics,
Fraunhofer Institute
39 Turning Financial Messaging Data into Business Profit – The New Challenge for Financial Institutions | André Casterman,
Chief Marketing Officer, INTIX
41 Commercial payments
42 Gaining Management Support for Your P-Card Programme | Terri Brustad, Manager of Content Services, NAPCP
44 Commercial Payments under the Scrutiny of New Technology | Chris Holmes, Senior Vice President, KAE
5 B2B FINTECH: PAYMENTS, SUPPLY CHAIN FINANCE & E-INVOICING GUIDE 2016 | TABLE OF CONTENT
Table of contents
47 Trade & finance
48 Financing International Supply Chains: An Idea Whose Time Has Come | Alexander R. Malaket, Deputy Head of the
Executive Committee, ICC Banking Commission
50 Improving Access to Finance for SMEs with the Open RFI Project | Matthijs van Bergen, Researcher SCF, Windesheim &
Steven van der Hooft, CEO, Capital Chains
52 If Supply Chain Finance is Supplier-Centric, Financial Supply Chain is Customer-Centric | Magnus Lind, Co-Founder,
The Talent Show
54 Supply Chain Finance, Time for SMEs to Take Position | Anita Gerrits, Supply Chain Finance Specialist
57 E-invoicing
58 Cross-border Invoicing – The Real Challenge for Multinational Projects | Bartłomiej Wójtowicz, Product Development
Manager, Comarch EDI
60 Why ‘Openness' Should Be The #1 Selection Criteria for Any E-invoicing RFP Process | Jaap Jan, Project Manager,
Simplerinvoicing
63 Regulation & law

64 PSD2 XS2A – a Step Towards Open Banking | Brendan Jones, Evolution Payments Consulting
66 Late Payment – A Perspective | Matthew Davies, Director of Policy and Communications, Asset Based Finance Association
68 The Directive 2014/55/EU for E-invoicing and Procurement: How Public Authorities Should Respond | Charles Bryant,
Secretary General, EESPA
70 Regulation and Growth in Alternative Finance – A Contradiction in the Making | Tony Duggan, Founder and Director, IAAF
72 Part 2 – Company profiles
89 Glossary
6 B2B FINTECH: PAYMENTS, SUPPLY CHAIN FINANCE & E-INVOICING GUIDE 2016 | TABLE OF CONTENT
Mirela Amariei, The Paypers
4 Trends in B2B Payments and Financing Innovation
I lived to see the US electing its first black president, I watched players (card schemes, issuers, processors, merchant acquirers,
the 2008 financial crisis crushing many dreams, I witnessed the national payment infrastructures) while the latter sees a huge
creation of Anonymous and Wikileaks, two organisations that number of newbies and thus, remains largely fragmented.
changed the way we, the people (and the organisations) carry
ourselves online. Blockchain is being built right under my curious What has changed? Everything and nothing at the same time.
eye by someone who’s identity is virtually unknown (or is it?). Some established fintechs are seeking to deliver a step change
in legacy infrastructure and the need for faster payments has
I am a young business professional curiously watching how visibly increased in the B2B segment, yet, Ardent Partners
things unfold and change my life and others forever. And I have research still points to ACH, commercial cards & wire transfers
questions. Lots of them. What if one day I will be able to make B2B as the fastest growing e-payment methods in 2016.
payments from my mobile phone enjoying the same convenience I
have in my personal life? And without any fees? And cross-border! Also, if you look at a bank’s product portfolio, one will discover a
Real-time would be nice, too. Could blockchain help? Are the range of solutions in retail, private, commercial, investment and
incumbent players ready to respond to my needs/requirements? transac¬tion banking, along with wealth and asset management
What do new companies offer? What is the risk working with and insurance. However, if you look at the fintech landscape, one
them? What can help me identify the best solution? Where are the will discover an increasing number of service providers that focus
innovations heading? What are the use cases for blockchain? on improving specific parts of this traditional broad portfolio by
using innovative technology. In other words, fintechs build and
In the sea of options, here are 4 trends that I picked up and that execute specific parts of the banking value chain better, cheaper
will make a dent in my history and that of payments & financing and faster than what is currently on offer at banks. Cheaper and
innovation. faster sound compelling.
Trend no. 1: Fintech Investors seem to enjoy the show too. Globally, investment in
One thing I learned while working at The Paypers as an expert on fintech ventures tripled from USD 4 billion in 2013 to USD 12
B2B payments is that I should always ask these three questions: billion in 2014, with Europe being the fastest growing region in the
what was, what is and what will be. And I first looked at the world, according to a report by Accenture.
current payments infrastructure.
How banks, corporates & payment schemes react

Intuitively, modernizing the internal infrastructure and operations to the inflow of new entrants?
to meet new payments needs unleashes new market innovations More than 90% of bankers expect that fintech will have a
but the reality is that they – both old and new infrastructure – will significant impact on the future landscape of banking. Almost a
have to co-exist for a while. third believe that fintech will win an equal share or even dominate
the market.
But first things first – how does the current payments infrastructure
stack up compared to the online sectors? For instance, in the UK Interestingly, this year’s Davos event was a lot about financial
Fintech sector, EY experts believe the entire UK industry currently technology (compared to previous years when it was much more
generates GBP 20 bn in revenue annually. The payments about banking) and what industry experts picked up was that
infrastructure alone accounts for GBP 8.1 bn while the online when it comes to big banks and payment schemes, they all
sector for GBP 1.9 bln. The former is dominated by established consider themselves part of fintech or driving it. ➔
7 B2B FINTECH: PAYMENTS, SUPPLY CHAIN FINANCE & E-INVOICING GUIDE 2016
➔ “Biggest Global Banks at Davos: We're All Fintech Innovators Peeking through the corporate sector window, Future Asia
Now” -Bloomberg Ventures talks about 116 corporate accelerators being live
worldwide. Europe takes the lion’s share with 54 accelerators,
The way that is unfolding is that, for instance, big banks started mostly based in the UK and Germany, however, companies are
to consolidate their position in the fintech world through heavy increasingly launching and adding more accelerators in EMEA
investments in startups, through acquisition and mergers, via and Asia Pacific locations as well.
opening innovation labs/hubs, via high-profile partnerships, etc.
Some examples include: JPMorgan Chase and Banco Santander No matter what the approach is, the consensus is that there is
announced an investment in ex-banker Blythe Masters’ blockchain a huge need to reduce costs, to align with a digital strategy, not
startup. Deutsche Bank invested in PayPal and OnDeck. Bank merely upgrade the IT systems.
of America has a USD 3 billion annual budget for investing in
technology and innovation, a figure that's doubled since 2010. “The state of corporate banking IT in the digital business world is
Visa has disclosed a 10% stake in the fintech unicorn Square precarious.” – Gartner & BCSG
and alongside Nasdaq, Citi, and other industry players invested
USD 30 million in Chain.com, a blockchain developer platform Survey data indicates CIOs are underestimating the importance
that serves an enterprise market. of digital technology, lack adequate staff, and resources, and are
mostly ignoring nonbank disrupters.
What’s more, all big players – banks, payments providers, card
schemes – poured their money into innovation labs /hubs / Although concerned, some banks do not appear to be stepping
accelerators. The highlights of 2015 are as follows: Visa Europe up to the challenge. A majority of bankers (54%) believe that
launched Visa Europe Collab, its new international innovation banks are either ignoring the issue or that they “talk about
hub and argued that the company is in a unique position to disruption, but are not making changes.”
help innovators develop and scale their ideas. MasterCard, on
the other hand, has selected in February 2016 together with Make no mistake; banks are actively engaged in digitalization,
Silicon Valley Bank four startups to take part in the fourth class and most firms have an IT strategy that is aligned and integrated
of Commerce.Innovated., a virtual accelerator designed to help with an attendant technology roadmap for implementing a digital
commerce startups grow their businesses. The solutions that will business. However, although 62 % of institutions reported that
be built here range from mobile lending to instant authentication they have already started deploying a digital banking roadmap,
and identity checks. As part of the program, the startups will only 53% of them have not appointed an executive to define and
gain access to operational expertise from Silicon Valley Bank, lead implementation. This suggests several significant road bumps
MasterCard, and their respective networks. are likely to appear during the digital transformation journey.
Wells Fargo is committed to “help innovative entrepreneurs What’s more, if you look at the relationship between banks and
overcome challenges and seize opportunities” with investments corporates, things have a different shade of gray. In a 2014
of up to USD 500.000 through its Startup Accelerator, a program report from EY, 63% of corporates reported product and service
focused on startups that create solutions for financial institutions innovation to be a critical part of their relationship with banks. ➔
and enterprise customers. Since its inception in 2014, the
Wells Fargo Startup Accelerator has received applications from
innovative companies in 23 countries.
➔ Yet, those respondents suggested that only 40% of banks The goal is to enhance cross-border transactions by leveraging
have satisfactory performance levels. Moreover, a more recent SWIFT’s messaging platform and global reach.
report (September 2015) from Total Solutions and Innopay shows
that only 14% of corporates make use of B2B FinTech solutions Trend no. 3: Blockchain
(survey among large corporates in the Netherlands). Another 70% Blockchain is the technology underpinning Bitcoin, and one of its
of the corporates are following the B2B fintech market, but have biggest advantages is that it allows two parties to transact without
not engaged yet. According to the survey, the two main reasons making use of a central authority of third party intermediaries.
not to engage are: a lack of sufficient knowledge about and Oversimplifying a bit, it removes huge costs and adds transparency,
insight into the impact of using finTech solutions and concerns speed, and security. Ripple, Ethereum, Monero, Lightning Network,
about the continuity of the finTech company. Only 12.5% of the Amiko Pay, Bitfury and others act as agents of disruption in the
questioned companies state that they do not want to jeopardise B2B payments world by using blockchain rails.
their bank relation.
“Banks foresee benefits for corporations by virtue of the
Trend no. 2: Cross-border payments & B2B commerce applications running on the blockchain that will ripple down to
80 % of cross-border payments revenues are B2B, according to the banks’ corporate clients. Consequently, before launching
McKinsey. Emerging Asian and Eastern European economies are any blockchain-related program, a bank must be very clear and
set to experience the greatest growth. extremely convincing about what is in it for its corporate clients".
- Enrico Camerinelli, senior analyst at Aite Group
So, if the contribution of cross-border payments to total payments
revenue growth will climb from 5 % in 2013-2014 to 14 % in 2014- Other players ‘rewiring’ the way payments are processed through
2019, there is money to be made and fintech is the front-runner to the use of blockchain include GoCoin, Blade, GemPay, Gazeebo.
help remove some of the frictions. io, etc. as depicted by William Mougayar, author of the book ‘The
Business Blockchain’.
"As nonbank players increasingly encroach on the traditional
cross-border turf of banks— moving from consumer-to-consumer Trend no. 4: Alternative financing
to B2B cross-border payments—they will force many banks to According to the ‘2016 UK Alternative Finance Industry Report’
rethink their longstanding approaches to cross-border payments". by Nesta and KPGM, the UK online alternative finance industry
– McKinsey grew to GBP 3.2 billion – an 84% increase compared to the GBP
1.74 billion of 2014. In 2015, almost 20,000 British SMEs raised
In this scenario of ‘unbundling of the full-service model of banks alternative finance through online channels, receiving GBP 2.2
into bits and pieces’, the market depicts new names: Traxpay, billion in business funding. The online alternative finance industry
Align Commerce, Payoneer, Transpay, Ripple, eeDOCS, Earthport, is pushing the needle of market growth, business models, public
Kontox, to name only a few. awareness, corporate partnerships, institutional funding, product
innovation, international expansion as well as further regulatory
Good news though; major banks around the world take action support and policy acceptance.
to improve the customer experience in cross-border payments
dramatically by signing up to SWIFT’s global payments innovation Among all models, peer-to-peer business lending and invoice
initiative, announced at the end of December 2015. The +45 trading are the largest models by volume of the UK online
participating firms include major transaction banks from Europe, alternative finance market.
Asia Pacific, Africa and the Americas.
➔ In total, nearly GBP 1.49 billion was lent to SMEs in the UK
(a 99% year-on-year growth rate and 194% average growth rate
between 2013 and 2015).
Mirela Amariei
Interestingly enough, innovative corporate partnerships are
Senior Editor being forged between alternative finance platforms with the likes
The Paypers of Virgin, Amazon, Uber, Sage, and KPMG. This has certainly
pushed boundaries – merging the traditional corporate world
with the disruptive models of alternative finance.
About Mirela Amariei: Crafting large-scale industry Invoice trading, the second highest model, continues to be a
reports, carrying out interviews and writing about popular financing tool for small and medium-sized enterprises
innovation in payments and fintech are Mirela’s wanting to trade their invoices or receivables at a discount,
daily treats. As the Senior Editor at The Paypers, in exchange for the speedy procurement of working capital.
she speaks frequently with key thoughts leaders However, while the GBP 270 million market size in 2014 grew by
to identify trends and trendsetters. She can be 178% compared to 2013, growth from 2014 – 2015 was more
reached at mirela@thepaypers.com and via modest, with a 20% growth rate to GBP 325 million.
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/amarieim
Zooming in on the strategies banks (and alternative finance
About The Paypers: The Paypers is the leading providers, for that matter) use to better position themselves, we
source of news and intelligence for professionals in identify a lot of partnerships. Banks teaming up with online lenders.
the payment community worldwide. Our products This is a different dynamic – instead of trying to displace banks,
are aimed at merchants, payment services online lenders decided to strike partnerships. For instance, On
providers, processors, financial institutions, Deck teamed up with JP Morgan Chase and said it will help speed
start-ups, technology vendors and payment up the process of offering small business loans to the bank's 4
professionals and have a special focus on all major million customers. Lending Club, another online lender, tied-up
trends and developments in payments-related with Citi. Moven partnered marketplace lender CommonBond.
industries including online and mobile payments In a game of tongue twisters, American Banker said that fintechs
and banking, ecommerce, e-invoicing, supply chain team up to become more like a bank. I would argue that banks
finance, web fraud & security and many others. team up with fintechs to become more like a fintech.
www.thepaypers.com Also, another question arises: what if a corporate want to expand
into more countries? That may mean to establish a physical
presence in each location that is relevant to their client. Could
banks satisfy that need too?
Share this story The industry is dynamic, and some companies leapfrogged some
steps, but although the developments are innovative and exciting,
the road ahead is paved with many bumps.
Thought Leadership Section
B2B Payments
Deutsche Bank
B2B payment innovation: the beginning of exciting times
Retail banking has experienced futuristic leaps in the payments space – now is the time for the same
level of transformation and convenience in the B2B space
Why should banks and corporates invest in real- for execution out of the central account. Improving cash and
time payments? liquidity management in these ways reduces credit need and the
For corporates, the benefits stem from the capability for executing operational burden on subsidiaries.
time-sensitive transactions – such as High-Value, critical vendor
or M&A-related payments – while receiving close-to-immediate Deutsche Bank’s experience and feasibility studies on POBO/
proof of execution instead of waiting for the specific entry to be COBO in Europe over the past four years have shown four kinds
documented by standard intraday reporting. of challenges; market-specific practices, and legal, tax and
operational considerations. In addition, POBO/COBO structures
For banks to serve client needs, they need to be involved in these differ in the status of the underlying account. For POBO, the
developments, which is why Deutsche Bank and others are helping ordering account can be a normal operating account in most
develop a Pan-European Instant Payment Solution. For large jurisdictions but, since funds collected within COBO structures
banks, involvement in establishing such future payment/collection often relate to different legal entities, the underlying account is
platforms is a "revenue loss avoidance" tactic rather than a often considered a trust account. This has further implications.
"profit creation" one, as they will otherwise lose market share to For instance, depending on regional Anti-Money Laundering laws,
disruptors. And, while urgent payments can currently be more an account can contain either own funds of the account holder
expensive, there may be a regulatory push for banks to provide or funds that belong to third parties (trust accounts) – not both.
real-time payments with no extra charges in the near future. That in turn may require corporates to separate some incoming
transaction flows from the entities flows’ part of the on-behalf-of
structure.
The industry is poised to apply What main friction points in B2B cross-border
such innovation to the B2B space payments will disappear in the next five years?
Developments, driven by regulatory change or facilitated by
– but only through collaboration
technology and solution-based improvements, will ultimately
will this be possible. allow for more frictionless and cost-effective transaction
processing. For example, the Payment Services Directive (to be
updated soon by PSD-2) affected cut-off times and value-dating
What are the benefits and challenges of implementing habits, and a shift will likely take place in this area to align cross-
pay-on-behalf-of/collect-on-behalf-of structures? border payments in different currencies with the same value-
POBO/COBO structures help corporates consolidate cash dating as SEPA payments.
flows and rationalise account structures, as well as increasing
purchasing power when negotiating cash management terms Similarly, currency payments will likely become easier thanks
with banks. POBO/COBO simplifies liquidity management, as to automated conversion services, such as Deutsche Bank’s
cash is centralised through domestic and cross-border cash FX4Cash, which offers client ease-of-use, real-time FX rates
concentration. It also allows for streamlined cash management and enhanced transaction data. And solutions such as Virtual
activities across subsidiaries, as payments and receivables Accounts will improve reconciliation and accounting (through the
are bundled in one place (such as a Shared Service Centre) rationalisation of physical bank accounts across a region).
13 B2B FINTECH: PAYMENTS, SUPPLY CHAIN FINANCE & E-INVOICING GUIDE 2016 | THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
What bank-core competencies foster innovation
and growth through fintech partnerships in the B2B
payments space?
We have witnessed the effects of the first wave of digitalisation
Andrew P. Reid
on daily activities, particularly through smart devices and apps.
Managing Director and Head of Peer-to-peer and C2B processes have already experienced
Cash Management Corporates, EMEA, radical transformation and the industry is poised to apply such
Global Transaction Banking
innovation to the B2B space – but only through collaboration
Deutsche Bank between incumbents and new players will this be possible.
Fintechs have the technical skills and understanding of consumer
About Andrew Reid: Appointed to his current behaviour, fail-friendly mindset and regulatory freedom to be
role in 2013, Andrew has been with the Bank for innovative – but in an increasingly competitive landscape that
17 years, within corporate cash management and will see market consolidation over coming years, they need more
trade finance. Andrew supports and advises clients than that to survive. Banks, conversely, experience internal and
in adapting to the new regulatory environment and external obstacles to innovating independently, including legacy
optimising their treasury operations. systems, internal siloes, a cautious culture and tighter regulatory
restrictions. But by offering the strength of their established
About Deutsche Bank: Deutsche Bank provides reputation, global infrastructure, existing client-base and expertise
commercial and investment banking, retail regarding risk, regulation and treasury needs, banks can support
banking, transaction banking and asset and fintech growth, bring new products to market through such
wealth management products and services to strategic alliances, and successfully scale-up new offerings.
corporations, governments, institutional investors,

businesses, and private individuals. Deutsche Bank What are the Bank’s plans for blockchain?
is Germany’s leading bank, with a strong position in Distributed Ledger Technology is not new, but interest around its
Europe and a significant presence in the Americas potential applications is rising, and opportunities for blockchain
and Asia Pacific. – from fraud prevention and risk reduction to quicker and more
transparent payment flows – cannot be ignored. We are at the
gtb.db.com beginning of the blockchain journey, and the ways it will change
business models, processes, and ecosystems, are yet to be
seen, but we predict immense potential up and down the value-
chain. Participants – for example, it was one of the first banks to
test smart contracts for corporate bonds, which was conducted
in-house in collaboration with the DB Labs. Deutsche Bank
recently opened innovation labs in London and Berlin, with a third
just opened in Silicon Valley, which will help the Bank best utilise
new technologies and deepen relationships with start-ups. In a
Share this story decade, there will be myriad different blockchain technologies, and
interoperability will be crucial. The Bank is an initial driving member
of blockchain consortium R3 CEV and participated in trials of five
distinct blockchain technologies with other member banks.
Aite Group
Blockchain In B2B Payments
Financial institutions are spending time and resources to find increasingly global B2B payments. There are complexities with
out how much business they can gain by adopting blockchain foreign payments that are not experienced in domestic payments,
technology. This hype on the bank side does not correspond such as foreign exchange, value-added taxes in certain countries,
to similar interest from corporations, nor it’s clear whether interfaces with many clearing and settlement networks, and
blockchain technology creates similar business opportunities the need to understand and apply specific country laws with
for each side. Yet, a significant roadblock must be removed. regard to payments processing. Knowledge about the status of
That is, the extremely poor understanding corporate people payments can be even more important than settling the payment
have about blockchain. In a January 2016 survey, 95 corporate itself. The status of payments may affect the ability of a buyer
executives—66 of whom were supply chain and treasury to make a purchase from a seller, depending on the amount of
managers, with the remaining coming from IT, legal, and sales— credit extended by the seller to the purchaser. It may also impact
were asked if they were familiar at all with the term “blockchain”. future pricing provided by the seller to a buyer. For time-critical
Over 80% answered “no”. The first step of the journey is thus to payments, knowing the location of a particular transaction in the
align on terms and definitions. Consider blockchain as a “secured payment process allows the payer to take action if the payment is
spreadsheet” that sits in the cloud that multiple parties can review. delayed. The more corporate treasurers know about outgoing and
Each of the transactions that are a part of it is guaranteed by a incoming payments, the better their cash forecasts.
set of cryptographic keys and all transactions are stored in one
database. The blockchain is essentially an enormous database Blockchain and B2B payments
that runs across a global network of independent computers. This article examines which blockchain drivers best apply to
current B2B payment process elements and intermediaries
Main characteristics of blockchain – e.g., banks, network providers, clearing and settlement
Irrevocability: There is an irrevocable trail (i.e., time-stamping) structures. Rather than revolutionary, the analysis determines
of all the transactions that have ever been made, which makes how blockchain supports, improves, and- eventually- replaces
attempts at hacking or fraud unsuccessful. current B2B payments processes (see Figure 1).
Title transfer: It allows property whose ownership is controlled
via the blockchain (i.e. physical property such as cars, phones Figure 1: Blockchain Features Applied to B2B
or houses). Payment Process Elements
Distributed: The ledger represents the truth because mass
collaboration constantly reconciles, without having the need to
trust because that’s built into the mechanism.
Smart contracts: Perhaps the most relevant blockchain feature,
smart contracts are self-executing contractual states, stored on

the blockchain, which nobody controls and, therefore, everyone
can trust. The code can control and restrict how the data is
accessed and used.
Where do we go from here?

A bitcoin that transfers ownership of title of a crypto-currency
can be applied between two parties that exchange goods for
money in business-to-business (B2B) transactions. B2B partners

Source: Aite Group
would best benefit from blockchain-based applications in the
➔ When paying the supplier, the buyer issues a payment
instruction from its accounts payable to the bank. This initiates
the transfer of title of currency and a time-stamp makes the
transaction irrevocable. The intermediary bank may enjoy

Enrico Camerinelli
blockchain’s irrevocability and title transfer to secure the
senior analyst uniqueness and traceability of the transactions underpinning
Aite Group the cash transfer. The distributed nature of the blockchain
ledger avoids any delayed centralized control of AML screening,
checking of availability of funds, and clearing, billing, and
reporting activities. All executed operations are validated within.
About Enrico Camerinelli: Enrico Camerinelli is The ledger offers the extra capability to the bank to swiftly handle
a senior analyst at Aite Group specializing in format translations from the client’s accounting system. A smart
wholesale banking, cash and trade finance, and contract on the blockchain provides the bank with the capability
payments. He brings a strong European focus to charge transparent and auditable service fees.
to Aite Group’s Wholesale Banking practice. Mr.

Camerinelli has been widely quoted by publications The distributed ledger operates as the connectivity software
ranging from American Banker to the Financial that the clearing network provides to all trading parties and
Times. intermediaries. The network is also capable of offering time-
stamping services as well as detect transactions that may trigger
About Aite Group: Aite Group is an independent the execution of smart contract applications. Format translations
research and advisory firm focused on business, can be easily offered as a value added service.
technology, and regulatory issues and their impact

on the financial services industry. With expertise in The beneficiary bank receives notice of an irrevocable transfer of
banking, payments, wealth management, capital cash title that the distributed ledger renders valid and immediately
markets, and insurance, Aite Group's analysts work executable. The ledger also streamlines all necessary account
with clients as partner, advisor, and catalyst. management verifications to validate the payment data. The seller’s
account is immediately credited, and all subsequent regulatory
www.aitegroup.com and accounting reporting is made auditable and irrevocable.
Bank services can be charged via smart contract applications
agreed between the parties. The blockchain enables the seller-
i.e., the B2B payment receiving party- to update the accounts
receivable database with a payment confirmation that becomes
an auditable transaction.
Blockchain is certainly not the panacea for all problems, but the
frequency of applied features to the B2B payment processes
Share this story tells, however, that all parties involved could strongly benefit
from this technology without the need for anyone to be removed.
Traxiant
The Emerging Internet of Payments
New offerings have been proliferating in B2B payments, not
to mention financing solutions of various kinds. Their growth,
however, and the shift from paper to electronic, has long been
stymied by a lack of interoperability. Most industry actors see the
need for an industry-scale solution to this problem and believe it
will happen eventually. But fewer are clear on the path to get there.
In the USD 700 trillion of B2B payments globally, connecting
the many buyers, sellers, and providers of payments, financing
and software solutions might seem an impossible task. And
yet, we have the example of the Internet. A framework for
such payments interoperability would also almost inevitably be Among enterprise buyers, card e-payables and global payments
standards-based and global. So it’s reasonable to use the term solutions are now relatively widely adopted – as indeed are
the “Internet of Payments” (“IoP”) to talk about this. The naming supplier networks. Increasing competition from financial
of such a phenomenon, however, is of course less important institutions but also fintech players makes it ever more important
than questions such as “whether”, “what”, “how” and “when”. that providers optimise for adoption and value also on the
supplier side of the equation. Strategically, the requirement here
Unlike most industry actors, we believe that the conditions for is for an extensible standards framework and platform that can
the IoP to emerge have recently been falling into place. Tactical connect suppliers globally, across both commodity payment and
business needs are aligning with cloud-based technology value-added trade and financing scenarios.
platforms and solution options. And alignment with standards
frameworks, notably around ISO 20022, offers the potential for Tactical solutions, however, are also needed: more narrowly
faster and wider scaling of such solutions, with lower investment. focused but aligned with the larger strategic goals. One essential
element of such tactical solutions is enabling suppliers to
The payments solutions that account for most B2B volume connect using their existing payments and software solutions.
today such as cheque and ACH are commoditized. Their For “long tail” suppliers, their ability to do so via a low friction,
transaction revenue models don’t support much investment “consumerized” experience will also matter. In recent years,
in next-generation solutions. Basis point revenue streams cloud solutions and APIs to enable this have become available
from receivables/trade financing, forex and card models, by for some widely-used financial solutions. No silver bullet will
contrast, can support such investments. Buyers nowadays don’t work for every supplier, instantly. And yet solving the problem for
pay much for those services; most, rather, expect to receive supplier systems one by one is clearly an approach that won’t
discounts or rebate payments. Thus, a critical driver of revenue scale. However, by aligning with – and shaping – a standards-
in such businesses is the ability to get suppliers enrolled and based IoP framework, early movers can start to build network
agreeing to pay the relevant fees. This supplier onboarding effects that do scale. Proprietary network effects can and will
process is invariably hard work, especially as you get further drive competitive advantage, especially for early movers, even
out on the “long tail”. Most new “solutions” being promoted to when built on top of standards. A broader network effect will
suppliers offer benefits of earlier or faster payment. But they are, come from the technical openness of the growing IoP ecosystem.
from the supplier’s perspective, typically exception processes As that happens, industry actors of all kinds will invest in
and thus, value-subtracting. solutions based on IoP standards so as to get connected. ➔
➔ No discussion of B2B payments futures would be complete
without touching on the blockchain. Such solutions seem likely
to play an important role. How the various “not-Bitcoins”, with
their technical and regulatory benefits, will fare against Bitcoin

Roger Bass
itself remains unclear. Standards, such as the “Interledger
CEO and Principal Protocol” could play a role, perhaps enabling an “Internet of
Traxiant Value” layer for the IoP. That said, in global B2B payments,
the “chicken-and-egg” challenges that are inherent in any
new network technology clearly exist. Blockchain adoption as
a purely “back office” or inter-bank technology seems likely
About Roger Bass: Roger Bass is Founder, CEO to happen first within narrowly-defined early use cases and
and Principal of Traxiant. Previously with Intuit for communities. Adding value to pre-existing end-user (buyer-
eleven years, he recently led a Network Payments seller) interactions, like Skype did, may be one plausible early
initiative. Other instrumental roles included: the adoption scenario. “Piggy-backing” on another network layer or
launch of Intuit’s European operations, first online use case, like Paypal’s initial use for eBay payments, is another
banking solution, SMB Internet group, and the way to think about this. Combining all of these may work best:
QuickBooks platform. Reach out via: roger@ end user demand can be effective in driving adoption by solution
traxiant.com providers, notably banks in this case.
About Traxiant: Traxiant provides software and An Internet of Payments, as it emerges, will reshape the B2B
consulting solutions to help financial and technology payments industry, and much more besides. It will likely develop
providers grow their B2B Payments and Financing quite suddenly as a mass phenomenon, much like the Internet in
solutions, and profit from the Internet of Payments. the mid-nineties. It will create winners and losers. Those who move
Solutions and areas of expertise include card early to test, learn, and shape the emerging Internet of Payments
e-payables, global payments, receivables financing ecosystem and framework will be best positioned to win.
and supplier networks.
www.traxiant.com
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Blockchain
Orchard Finance
B2B Blockchain-based Payments: Can it Beat the Banks?
For those interested in Supply Chain Finance/Trade Finance, Blockchain payments; how real-time are they?
there is an increasing amount of articles about blockchain. As said before, blockchain is a distributed ledger; a shared
For those who are not yet familiar with this term: it is the database. All parties involved have access to this database
underlying technology behind Bitcoin. The starting point for this thus, the participants that are allowed to participate, see the
technology was to allow two parties to transfer a token of value same version of the truth. This means that if one party wants to
(Bitcoin) from one to another, in a cheap, reliable and fast way. send a token of value to another party, it updates the distributed
Three main criteria for it are: the two parties can be anywhere in ledger. When this update is agreed by the participants, the ‘new’
the world, there should not be a central authority processing a state of the ledger is accepted. With Bitcoin, the acceptance
transaction, and the same token (Bitcoin) cannot be spent more is done by miners, validating the transaction via sophisticated
than once. cryptographic encryption. A transaction is fully validated in
approximately 8 minutes.
To meet all these criteria, the solution proved to be a distributed
ledger containing all transactions, visible for all participants in The Bitcoin blockchain is a well-developed network with many
the network. A transaction is approved by consensus, which is miners that can vet a transaction. This Bitcoin blockchain,
reached by cryptographic encryption. This technology is called however, might not be the best blockchain for B2B payments.
blockchain. Many articles about blockchain are focused on the There are providers in the market that are building new types
way it works (hence, are very technical), but because of the of blockchains that are specifically developed to facilitate
complex terminology being used, it causes more confusion than payments within a Supply Chain. This means that payments
clarity. Perhaps the authors of these articles have been inspired can be done, real-time, worldwide, at low cost. Next to the fast,
by former American president Harry S. Truman when he said: ‘If low-cost payment processing there is another interesting aspect
you can’t convince them, confuse them’. to blockchain-based payments. By using so-called ‘smart
contracts’ payments can be made conditional.
Instead of focusing on the technology, it is far more interesting to

understand what it can do for businesses. The technology itself There are a wide array of situations this can be applied to:
is very powerful and it has the potential to radically transform
how businesses work and how payments are done. If a Bitcoin • A payment can be executed in case certain criteria are met.
can be transferred in such a cheap, fast, reliable manner, why For example: a container with bananas arrives in the Port of
not a Euro or a Dollar? Rotterdam at an agreed time and by using special scanning
equipment, the quality and quantity are checked and approved.
The current situation of a ‘real-time payment’ is still depending on When these criteria are met, a payment is executed automatically.
cut off times of banks. The party that initiates the payment sees
the amount deducted from their bank balance, then the receiver • A budget can be allocated and this budget can only be spent
will get the amount some time later. Depending on the sending on predefined parties. For instance: a government provides
and receiving bank this can range from a couple of hours up to a rental allowance for individuals with a minimum income.
a couple of days. What happens is that the bank of the sender This allowance can only be spent at a pre-approved landlord.
updates its ledger (the bank balance of the sender), sends the In case it is not used before a certain moment in time, the
transaction via (most likely) the SWIFT network to the receiving allowance is cancelled. ➔
bank. Afterwards, the receiving bank receives the transaction,
and updates its ledger (the bank balance of the receiver).
• Various parties in a supply chain can all be paid when the end
consumer purchases the product. For example, a consumer

Kris Wielens
buys a song online. At the moment of purchase, the amount
Senior Consultant paid is distributed amongst the band, the producer, the studio
Orchard Finance and the record label. All parties are rewarded based on their
added value.
Blockchain-based payments open up many possibilities.
About Kris W ielens: Kris W ielens is Senior Not only is it possible to trade easier and cheaper, but also
Consultant with Orchard Finance. He has more payments can be made smarter. Banks are particularly interested
than a decade experience is (corporate) payments in this new technology and are closely investigating the potential
with various fims. He has been active as Head it may offer to them. It is exciting times for banks and payment
of Strategic Partnerships, EMEA Business institutions as with blockchain the real disruption is knocking
Development Manager, Sales Manager and Credit on the door. The disruption here is not that things are done a
Analyst. bit smarter, more efficient or faster. The disruption in payments
is that there is technology available that makes banks, PSPs,
About Orchard Finance: Orchard Finance is a credit card companies redundant. Cutting out these middlemen
leading independent consultancy and staffing by making use of technology that provides the same trust and
company specialized in the areas of Finance and robustness (or perhaps even more) will increase the speed of
Treasury. Tailoring to our clients, we offer advisory payments, increase the possibility to trade with each other while
services, project management and staffing significantly reducing costs.
support. Our professionals have a long standing

reputation based on operational and project
experience in banking, corporate finance and
treasury management & control.
www.orchardfinance.com
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Innopay
The Three-Phased Transformation of Supply Chain Finance with Blockchain
Technology
At Innopay we saw the early discussions around Bitcoin in 2010 context of SCF we will see fundamental improvements in essential
transforming into a discussion about blockchain technology processes such as:
by 2015. When blockchain was eventually seen as a promising
technology, the discussions transformed to: “So where can we • Synchronising processes;
use it?” Although many contexts for the usage of blockchain • Harmonised naming and numbering conventions;
concepts have been discussed, this article specifically discusses • Deducing the current state of invoices;
the use of blockchain concepts as a transformative force in • Invoice double spending when it comes to financing;
Supply Chain Finance (SCF). SCF, as we broadly define it, is the • Insight into goods flows (ownership and arrivals);
management of financial flows in the supply chain which includes • Less administrative steps for goods receipt to activate invoice
financial processes (transaction processes, data processing, sending and subsequent payout;
invoice matching, etc.) and SC financing techniques. • Cheap and transparent dispute resolution.
We believe blockchain concepts could fundamentally change Phase 2: Transactional network (3-5 years)
how we organise SCF in the nearby future, but it will take time In the development of an understanding of blockchain technology,
before involved stakeholders will have gained the desired the knowledge that a transaction is nothing more or nothing less
level of common understanding needed to make it a reality. than an accepted change to a database is an essential step.
The fundamental reason behind this is that the benefits of Although this insight may sound straightforward it is counterintuitive
blockchain only get realised within the context of a network and based on the ubiquitousness of the traditional banking payment
the level of usage of a technology within a network is largely and escrow services for transactions in SCF. Their role is seldom
dependent on users’ collective level of understanding. questioned or re-examined. As soon as this insight becomes
common knowledge, the potential of blockchain technologies
We predict that the collective understanding comes in phases (as within transactions for both financial and ownership of goods
it is currently unfolding in the banking and insurance industries) purposes will be understood at a more innovative level.
namely: shared database, transactional network and automatable
transactional network. This development of the collective With blockchain-based transactional networks, any type of
understanding provides a tidy framework in which we can transaction can be directly executed without the need for third
describe the abovementioned transformation of SCF. parties. As soon as this functionality becomes part of the collective
understanding of the SCF community, the community can take
Phase 1: Setting up shared databases (0-3 years) advantage of this by reducing complexity, by coordinating
One of the fundamental e-business process challenges has financial information, monetary flows and goods movements into
always been how do companies cross each other’s organisational one transactional network.
boundaries to allow a secure, dependable and synchronised flow
of goods and transactional data. The most logical means would Currently, transactional complexity and challenges surrounding
be by using a shared database. Currently, blockchain technology the coordination of different transactional flows are limiting
is the de facto instrument for shared database where all the scalability and international breadth of SCF networks. Blockchain
involved parties can read and write on the database while the technology can provide elegant solutions to these impediments
state of the database can be trusted without the involvement of and unlock value at an international level by further linking small
intermediaries. As the communal understanding – and subsequent SMEs to global corporates and financiers. ➔
use – of blockchain as a shared database gains traction within the
➔ Phase 3: Automatable transactional network
(5-7 years)
As soon as the SCF community gains communal understanding
of blockchain as a transactional network then the next natural

Gys Hough
line of inquiry could be the nature of transaction initiation. During
Consultant this inquiry the following components of blockchain technology
Innopay will be discovered and the third phase might commence:
• M ulti-signature capability – a means of separate entities to
safely and securely state whether an event took place or not;
About Gys Hough: Gys Hough follows the develop • Smart contracts – agreements that automatically execute the
ment of blockchain concepts since 2012 and was change of ownership of funds or goods based on whether an
involved in shaping several business ideas based event took place or not;
on blockchain concepts in the field. He is also • C ryptocurrencies – a set of tokens of a variable but crypto
involved in the facilitation of various discussions graphically verifiable amount, which is used for efficient value
surrounding blockchain applications in the financial transfers.
industry.
By means of combining multi-signature and smart contracts with
About Innopay: Innopay is an independent existing e-mandates or cryptocurrencies, the automatic payment
consulting company, specialised in online payments, of invoice amounts or other types of collateral could be initiated
digital identity and e-business. We help our clients, and executed instantaneously and automatically. This will open
including financial institutions, governments and the path towards an international SCF network that automatically
corporates, to develop the compelling strategies creates investment grade financial instruments as a seamless
and digital services for consumers and companies part of the supply chain process.
that are key for successful competition in a rapidly

digitising world. Conclusion
Although history shows us that we can only have so much
www.innopay.com foresight, we see a clear match between the features of blockchain
concepts and SCF: we believe that at some point blockchain will
be a prominent part of SCF. The speed at which SCF will evolve
and innovate will depend on the creativity of its stakeholders
and how fast the common understanding on how to use the
technology will develop. Seeing that blockchain technology has
something compelling to offer at each phase of understanding, we
see rapid developments taking place sooner than later.
Share this story
Innovation In Payments & Banking
SWIFT
Correspondent banking rejuvenated
Designed for the corporate treasurer, SWIFT’s global payments innovation initiative offers an ambitious
roadmap for reinventing the correspondent banking model as we know it today. With ever increasing
competition from new entrants offering same-day, or even real-time payment facilities, SWIFT is
uniting the banking industry to provide corporates with a cross-border payment service that offers
greater speed, transparency and predictability.
Launched in December 2015 to much anticipation in the industry, I think improvements can be made in three main areas: firstly,
the initiative has received strong backing with more than 50 the speed of payments; corporates want fastest payments, so
leading banks already signed up. The Paypers spoke to Wim banks need to be able to guarantee that they are made within
Raymaekers, SWIFT’s Head of Banking Market and programme certain timeframe. Secondly, corporates want to know the
manager of the global payments innovation initiative, to find out exact payment amount that will reach their counterparty – here
more about this exciting move. banks need to provide transparency on the fees involved and
the amount credited to the creditor. And, thirdly, they want to
be able to track payments; banks need to let corporates know

SWIFT is uniting the banking when payments have been initiated and credited to the creditor's
industry to provide corporates account to avoid delays in the supply chain or frictions between
supplier and seller.

with a cross-border payment
service that offers greater speed, What are the opportunities for a corporate to
transparency and predictability. leap forward through the use of the cross-border
payment industry?
Corporates are not in the business of payments, they just want
We often hear that B2B payments are opaque, to buy and sell. Yet they do have to manage their treasury to
complex, and risky. Why do you think that is, and make those payments – so a better, faster, more transparent
where do you think that improvements can be made? payment solution is important to them. On top of that, having
Yes, currently when a corporate treasurer sends a request a good payment infrastructure benefits your supply chain.
for a cross-border transaction to his bank, he typically has no Because if the money does not get to the supplier in time, the
sight on what actually happens with that demand. They often credit line will go up, causing delays on all fronts. So the better
liken this to a ‘black hole’, saying they have no view on when your payment infrastructure is, the stronger and more reliable
payments occur or their final costs. This can lead to problems your supply chain is. ➔
with suppliers or end-customers, not to mention increasing
financial risks resulting from payment delays or non-compliance
with regulatory requirements.
➔ What can you tell us about the global payments
innovation initiative (gpii), and what are SWIFT’s
plans in regard to this initiative?
Wim Raymaekers
As part of the initiative, SWIFT is working in close collaboration
Head of Banking Market with the largest transactions banks in the world to enhance
SWIFT their corporate customers’ cross-border payment experience.
Together we will strive to provide a faster service with upfront
clarity on costs, confirmation of delivery and richer remittance
information data.
About W im Raymaekers: W im Raymaekers

leads SWIFT’s banking initiatives worldwide, and We are now working together with the banks to commonly
is responsible for developing and driving value agree service level agreements (SLAs) to which all the initiative
propositions across the banking community. In this member banks must comply. The new service will be designed
capacity, Wim’s mission is to help banks grow their to address end-customer needs, without compromising banks'
business, particularly in view of changing customer abilities to meet their compliance obligations, market, credit and
and market requirements. liquidity risk requirements.
About SWIFT: SWIFT is a global member-owned What is the role of blockchain in this initiative?
cooperative and the world’s leading provider of SWIFT is devoting significant resources to instigate the
secure financial messaging services. We provide opportunities and challenges of deploying blockchain, and
our community with a platform for messaging distributed ledger technologies more broadly, on our platform.
and standards for communicating, and we offer While the initiative aims to first make improvements based on the
products and services to facilitate access and existing infrastructures, in parallel, we are building a gpii vision
integration, identification, analysis and financial for cross-border payments. This will set out how we will adopt
crime compliance. new technologies in order to ensure corporate customers receive
the best possible payments experience in the near future.
www.swift.com
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UniCredit
Moving payments into the digital era
Which are UniCredit’s strategies to remain competitive transparency – eliminating the need for cash pooling, expediting
in the B2B cross-border payments space? the process of opening and closing accounts, and providing a
UniCredit is taking a number of steps to ensure that it offers a highly comprehensive overview of cash flows without sacrificing detail.
competitive portfolio of payments services, including a number of Going forward, UniCredit intends to remain at the cutting edge
tools for simplifying cross-border transactions. of B2B cross-border payments with new initiatives such as the
integration of big-data analytics into existing payments services
– offering clients insights based on payments data and other

The field of payments is relevant information.
undergoing a period of
With increased customer demand to install real-
transformation as digitalisation
time payment infrastructures, what trends do you
paves the way for greater speed see happening right now?
and efficiency The demand for instant payments is part of a wider trend towards
greater speed and efficiency in the industry. This is particularly
notable in ecommerce, where firms are looking to provide
In particular, UniCredit has invested considerably in the increasingly rapid delivery services – with next-day and even
Bank Payment Obligation (BPO) – a settlement tool which same-day delivery now possible. The use of digital technology to
enables firms to execute secure transactions, mediated by expedite routine processes is becoming more and more prevalent,
partner banks, through a quick and efficient digital process. with clients increasingly basing their expectations on their
When carried out properly, BPOs combine the risk mitigation and experiences in the retail sector. UniCredit is keen to play its part
financing advantages of Letters of Credit (LCs) with the digital in this development, and is already implementing real-time rates
speed of open account settlement. This makes them particularly for instant payments – including for cross-border transactions –
advantageous for cross-border transactions – especially with ahead of the November 2017 implementation date.
unfamiliar counterparties or those concentrated in a particular
region or industry. Thanks to bank mediation, the risk of non- How has UniCredit adapted to the digitalisation of
payment in such cases is drastically reduced – allowing firms the transaction banking industry?
to take on more business and sell their receivables more easily. UniCredit has established itself as a frontrunner in the
UniCredit has worked hard to bring these benefits to clients in development of key advances such as the BPO and virtual
the most efficient and convenient format possible – offering vast accounts, and continues to search for new and innovative ways
improvements on LC processing times, which are only set to to leverage technology for the benefit of its clients. To this end,
increase once the process is fully digitalized. This principle of it has taken a number of steps to ensure continued innovation
fully digitalized processes is also reflected in UniCredit’s virtual – with product development teams harnessing the expertise of
accounts services, which enable clients to consolidate their traditional banking experts and technology specialists, along
bank accounts in a given currency into a single “parent” account. with a wide range of external perspectives.
This can then be divided internally into as many “virtual”
accounts as required – with each account given its own allocated This has already seen blockchain technology become a reality
funds, account number and permissions. Already available for custody services clients, while virtual accounts technology
for affiliates’ incoming and outgoing transactions in nearly 50 is being supplemented by CAMT messages – enhancing
countries, including the SEPA zone and six CEE markets, this standardisation, even beyond the SEPA zone, with automated
system generates huge benefits to efficiency, scalability and reconciliation between banks and corporates. ➔
➔ UniCredit has also adopted a more holistic client interface,
including its IT solutions provider in client meetings. This enables
UniCredit to adapt its solutions to clients’ individual technological
requirements, rather than expecting them to adapt to accommo

Markus Straußfeld
date the solution.
Head of International Cash Management Sales
UniCredit How do you support your CEE-based clients in their
efforts to optimise working capital?
UniCredit offers its CEE-based clients a full range of support for
their working capital optimisation programmes – having been the
About Markus Straußfeld: Since 2005, Markus first in Russia, Bulgaria and Croatia to offer classic services such
Straußfeld has been Head of International Cash as cross-border cash pooling. UniCredit also offers unrivalled
Management Sales at UniCredit, responsible for BPO coverage, with the instrument already available in Bulgaria
cash management and eBanking sales to large and and Romania. In terms of approach, we encourage firms to avoid
multi-national organisations in Europe, the US and the ‘silo’ mindset of asking how they can benefit from individual
Asia. tools, such as receivables finance or approved payables finance
– instead promoting a focus on overarching short-, mid- and
About UniCredit: UniCredit is a bank with a long-term goals. Mostly it turns out that short-term liquidity
substantial footprint in Europe and an extensive generation is not corporates’ main concern – especially given the
international network of branches, representative abundance of liquidity in today’s market. Other factors, however,
offices, and correspondent banks – enabling it to such as risk mitigation, supply-chain stability and balance-sheet
follow its clients wherever they go. Its payments optimisation, almost always figure in their plans – demanding
services come under the Global Transaction a holistic programme for working capital optimisation. This, of
Banking (GTB) unit. course, also means being prepared for the eventuality of liquidity
suddenly or gradually drying up.
www.gtb.unicredit.eu
In the face of fintech disruption, which areas can
banks capitalise on?
Fintech companies certainly bring new impulses to the transaction
banking sector, but banks almost always excel by capitalising
on their existing strengths – drawing on their holistic financial
expertise and their status as trusted and highly regulated
partners to corporate clients. These strengths can, to a certain
extent, be amplified through digitalisation within banks –
translating greater efficiency into greater convenience for clients.
Even more promising, however, is the potential for co-operation
Share this story between banks and specialist technology companies, with banks
combining their core strengths and broad client base with fintech
independence and nimbleness to create the ideal conditions for
innovation.
sharedserviceslink
Making One-Click Finance Possible – Who Are the Relevant Stakeholders and
How They Should Work Together
There are 6 stakeholders in your supplier financing programme suitable rate that should be applied (given their credit history,
(SFP). This article examines each of the groups and what their etc.). Forensic research into each supplier will further your
contribution to the SFP is. understanding of the opportunities and risk, and the effect on
the return.
Accounts Payable:
In recent years, the AP function has nudged its way to the front IT:
of the crowd, becoming the owner of most SFPs. This is an You may decide to use your own cash or a third party’s cash.
interesting development, as the owner in the past was Treasury. Either way, technology will be involved. You will want IT brought
into the project early to understand macro considerations
This shift has come because of the evolution in invoice like security, connectivity and compatibility. IT will likely leave
processing technology. Ten years ago, AP’s focus was to (slowly) business, process and functional requirements to AP, Treasury
pay paper invoices. Since then, most multi-nationals have and Procurement.
implemented e-invoicing. Sizeable volumes of invoices are now
received electronically, meaning invoices are processed, posted IT’s contribution:

and paid quicker. And whether or not AP realised it at the time, SFP technologies have been on the market for years. They are
the scene was being set for something greater to unfold: early developing, and becoming more varied. It’s likely that someone
pay programmes. in the IT team has installed a SFP tool before. Make sure this
person sits on the team. Also make this program a priority. SFPs
Accounts Payable’s contribution: will not drain IT (wo)man days, so it need not compete with more
AP teams have become experts in onboarding suppliers. This demanding IT initiatives. Work with someone in IT that ‘gets’ this,
expertise was established during earlier e-invoicing or P-card and can approve on security, etc., at a quick pace.
programmes. Supplier onboarding is complicated but after a
few rounds of reaching out and asking suppliers to change Treasury:

something, you soon become proficient in onboarding. AP has Although Treasury was historically the owner and leader of SFPs,
been driven to become expert in supplier onboarding, as the it has taken on the role of collaborator in recent years, offering
financial gain relies on supplier engagement. This positions AP crucial perspective regarding the larger levers that should or
to own the supplier onboarding process for your SFP. shouldn’t be pulled, given the company’s cash position.
Procurement: Treasury’s contribution:

Whereas AP owns the onboarding process, Procurement Treasury understands the flow of cash and its real cost and
will own the actual relationship with suppliers, which means opportunity to the business. Because of this, it is well placed to
owning the message contained in the supplier communication. regularly assess which approach to take – is it better to use the
Suppliers listen to Procurement and see it as the key point of company’s own cash, use a third party’s cash (and if so, which
contact. Procurement can help make the SFP more successful party), or to stall on early payments altogether. Treasury has a
by drafting, and signing off on, clever messaging. 360º view of the company’s strategic aims, the balance sheet,
the bank account, real-time rates, and alternative rates through
Procurement’s contribution: alternative methods, as well as what's most important given
Procurement also owns the assessment of supplier risk – where the company is in its financial year. Treasury is the brains
assessing each supplier’s financial risk, year-end, and the behind the SFP. ➔
➔ C-Suite:
The CFO needs to back your project, and this support must
be visible. It is important to educate them on the SFP early by
presenting them with relevant case studies you have gathered

Susie West
and the possible business case.
CEO and Founder
sharedserviceslink C-Suite contribution:
They will need your direction, but the CFO and CPO will add
panache to your SFP. The ‘signature’ on the comms piece sent to
suppliers should be theirs. If any buyer in the business becomes
About Susie West: Susie West is the CEO and concerned about this programme, the C-Suite needs to have
Founder at sharedserviceslink, and proudly labels a response at hand. To realise the significant savings that can
herself as a shared services geek. She has been come from your SFP, your C-Suite must be ready to provide the
in the shared services industry since 1998. In 2007 required PR.
she set up sharedserviceslink, a leading global

business community for professionals looking Suppliers:
to improve performance in shared services. Her Buyers rarely push back against SFPs because a) it’s optional
central aim is to help individuals, companies for suppliers and b) it’s attractive for suppliers. However, getting
and the market mature through the sharing and the suppliers to engage is instrumental, and makes the supplier
consumption of (mostly peer generated) best a key stakeholder.
practice information.
Supplier contribution:
About sharedserviceslink: sharedserviceslink is a Success. Without their participation, your business case is a flop.
business community for professionals working in So make sure they understand what the SFP is, what’s in it for
shared services. sharederserviceslink is viewed as them, what they need to do, who they can reach out to with
trusted advisors to this market because it offers questions or concerns, and that participation in SFP inevitably
exceptional content, connection, insight and overall qualifies them as a preferred supplier.
value.
Conclusion:
www.sharedserviceslink.com Get the first five stakeholders onboard early, at concept stage,
so they feel supportive of the SFP’s direction and purpose, and
ask them how involved they would like to be, given their role.
Share this story
Exclusive interview
Token
The next generation of payments infrastructure will,

first of all, help banks open up.
What drives real-time payments infrastructure

Marten Nelson
adoption in the US vs EU?
A number of valuable business cases drive the adoption of real- VP Marketing
time payments infrastructure. Both consumers and businesses Token
expect funds to be instantly available during a payment
transaction. 25 years ago, the invention of the Worldwide Web
allowed us to share data instantly and globally. Exchanging value
should be just as easy and fast as moving information, but for
a number of reasons this hasn’t yet happened. While there are
regional real-time payments solutions, the US and many parts
of Europe are still lagging. But there is hope – the Feds in the
US and the ECB have launched real-time payments initiatives.
Why did Token choose to leverage the bank’s Website: www.token.io

existing ledger instead of using blockchain? Offices / location: Redwood City,
The main reasons were that we found the bank’s ledger to California, USA
perform pretty well in most cases and to leverage existing Founded in: 2015
infrastructure typically reduces the complexity of deployment Categories: payments, psd2, fintech
and, therefore, cost. It was simply a cost-benefit analysis.
There are many interesting use cases for distributed ledgers
and for some of our functions and in some situations it makes
sense. That’s why we designed the solution with distributed About the company
ledgers being optional. Token provides digital payment solutions for banks and
their clients to deliver instant, end-to-end secure and
What is the value proposition for European banks frictionless payments worldwide. The solution addresses
by integrating Token? the key concerns of PSD2: security, disintermediation
Token solves the main issues banks are facing in terms of and lack of revenue.
PSD2: security, disintermediation and the economics. First, you
can think of Token as a PSD2 firewall that protects the bank www.token.io
infrastructure from poorly behaving third parties. Second, Token
retains the bank’s customer experience even when accessed by
third parties. Last, we allow banks to offer value-added services
that generate incremental net revenue.
Future Asia Ventures
The Future of Banking Innovation and the Fintech Startups Journey
The financial services sector has become the poster child for Founders in fintech are generally a decade or more experienced
corporate innovation. Over the last 5 years, banks have been than their peers. Regulation is often an entry barrier because
investigating and experimenting with several new financial you need to be licensed by regulatory bodies to do business in
technologies in the crowd funding, trade processing, lending, each jurisdiction. For startups that want to expand, compliance
and wealth management areas. These experiments have come is mandatory and expensive. The financial system, for good
in different shapes and sizes. Based on our research, we know reason, doesn’t tolerate risk. As a result, founders need to
21 banks that have launched accelerator programs around the cooperate with regulators, budget for long waiting periods, find
world. Other banks have launched pre-accelerators, incubators, strategic partnerships that help their growth efforts and be in this
and labs. for the long haul. Fintech is marathon, not a sprint.
As a research & advisory firm, we regularly speak with many 3. Innovation can’t be measured
corporations, startups and venture investors. We are constantly When speaking with innovation officers, I am often asked
learning about the landscape. Here are 5 perspectives we would which program or format is the best. People are looking for a
like to share: quantitative measure or a definitive leader among corporations.
The truth is, there is no one best model or best innovator.
1. Fintech is old, but the market conditions have An innovation program should be designed around your
never been better budget, your timeline and the problem you are trying to solve.
Most experienced financial sector professionals understand that These factors are different for each company. For some, a
this recent wave of fintech startups is just that – a wave. Fintech hackathon might be best while for others a robust corporate
is a new term that captures a large category of existing and ventures program might make more sense. Available capital,
growing technologies which involve transaction processing, data decision-making dynamics and pain points vary per company.
and record keeping. Fintech companies have been innovating Each company has to do what’s right for them. However, one
since the 1950s. The last 60 years produced ATMs, credit cards, thing is certain – good innovation programs have a clearly
online banking and online stock investing, to name only a few. defined problem and success criteria. Without a mandate, you
Innovation in fintech is nothing new. What is new is the explosion are bound to go in circles.
of startups in the last six years. There are now approximately
6,000 fintech startups. The playing field is crowded and that’s
because the opportunity to innovate has never been greater.
The combination of cheap capital, a dry period in bank innovation
and a credit crisis, followed by heavy regulation, created the
right environment for startups to rise. There has never been a

better time to be an entrepreneur.
2. Regulation matters
It might sound obvious, but regulatory rules and compliance are
a very important part of the startup journey for fintech founders. Number of Corporate Accelerators Launched Each Year
Corporate accelerator launches have peaked. So far in 2016,
This makes fintech different from other startup sectors.
2 new accelerators have launched. Going forward, companies
will design tailored open innovation programs and formats to
engage and collaborate with startups.
4. Innovation is inherently wasteful
Several companies are still sitting on the sidelines. While our
latest research has uncovered that 116 companies around the

Falguni Desai
world have set up corporate accelerators and several dozens
Founder & Managing Director have launched incubators and labs, the, majority of large
Future Asia Ventures companies are not engaged in this type of open innovation.
They might be wondering whether an innovation program will
generate returns. The answer is no, not in the short term. But in
the long run, yes. Innovation creates waste. Companies won’t
About Falguni Desai: She is the Founder & solve the problem on the first try. Several partnerships and
Managing Director of Future Asia Ventures and investments will fail. Incubated ideas may not scale and those
has over 18 years of corporate strategy, innovation looking to try their hand at innovation should swallow this pill
and M&A experience. She has worked globally and be prepared for failure. To be good at innovation you need to
with business leaders at Fortune 500 firms in the try things and then quickly stop them when they don’t work and
financial, media and technology sectors to foster quickly try again.
growth & expansion.

5. The endgame is collaboration, not conflict
About Future Asia Ventures: Future Asia Ventures is I still see articles which predict a future without banks, how
an innovation advisory & research firm. Through our disruption will cause banks to fail and shut down. The reality
research and services, we help new ventures grow is banks play a very important role in the lending infrastructure
and connect investors with innovative opportunities. of most modern economies. Peeling back through fintech
We serve private investors, foundations and history, the innovations that survived and scaled were the
corporations around the world. ones that worked with banks, not against them. In the 1990s,
online stock brokers appeared on the scene. Stock exchanges
www.futureasiaventures.com and brokers didn’t disappear, but they now operate differently.
Today, fintech marketplace lenders offer loans more efficiently
to retail customers. The capital for these loans comes from
traditional banks and large asset managers. Banks, brokers and
asset managers won’t disappear; instead, their processes and
the customer experience they offer will change dramatically. The
moral here is that new fintech services will become part of the
overall financial infrastructure. Fintech startups will eventually
grow into companies that are counterparties and partners to
banks, not necessarily competitors. Of course, not all of them
will succeed, but the future of banking will be formed through
Share this story collaboration.
VISIT OUR ENHANCED ONLINE
COMPANY PROFILES DATABASE
ALLCOMPANY
ALL COMPANYPROFILES
PROFILESIN
INTHE
THEB2B
B2BFINTECH:
PAYMENTS, SUPPLY
PAYMENTS,
CHAIN
SUPPLYFINANCE & E-INVOICING
CHAIN FINANCE MARKET GUIDE
& E-INVOICING GUIDE ARE
ARE
AVAILABLE ONLINE IN AN ENHANCED COMPANY PROFILES
DATABASE, COMPLETE WITH KEYWORDS, COMPANY LOGO
AND ADVANCED SEARCH FUNCTIONALITY
www.e-invoicing.thepaypers.com
The Power Of Data & Traceability
Fraunhofer Institute
Track and Trace of Invoices for Working Capital Optimisation
1. Idea of exchanging invoice statuses + benefits 2. Need for standardisation

Increasing financial pressure forces firms to focus on their cash Standardisation is the key to successful processes and a
positions. For this reason, effective Working Capital Management profitable outcome – in this case the working capital optimisation.
is a high priority. There are different ways to improve the cash Where does the need for standardisation originate?
position of companies in supply chains – and here comes one
of them: exchanging invoice statuses positively influences the The SBRF Model directly connects to the financing instrument
cash position of selling parties. After the purchase of a product Supply Chain Finance (SCF). While the seller waits for his payment
or service, the seller sends his buyer an invoice and waits for after the delivery, his liquidity is reduced, hence, this becomes a
payment. The unpredictability of the moment of payment leads major problem for SMEs. Due to their small size, they often suffer
to significant challenges for sellers in managing their cash from poor borrowing terms, even if they would urgently need
positions. Smaller companies (SMEs) particularly struggle with access to capital.
liquidity shortages and unpredictable cash flows. Payment
deadlines vary between 30 and 90 days, and buyers tend to use SCF releases liquidity and creates benefits for all actors along
their free liquidity as long as possible. In the case of long payment the supply chain. The seller obtains a credit from a financier
deadlines, sellers may want to have their receivables financed by against the buyer’s credit rating for the period of the payment
financiers. The answer to this problem is offered by the Status and benefits from the buyer’s credit conditions. Normally, the
Based Receivables Finance Model (SBRF), a track and trace process is automated through an electronic platform, which
solution for electronic and paper-based invoices. The model can onboard a variety of suppliers (and financiers, if needed),
allows the actors to gain more insight in the invoice statuses. potentially combined with e-invoicing.
After the buyer grants the seller’s financier permission to access
the invoice status, the financier can ‘track and trace’ the invoice Yet, due to the number of SCF providers, there is a heterogeneity
in the buyer’s ERP system. It allows financiers to operate of concepts and technological solutions, which leads to
more effectively and efficiently, with reduced risks and lower inefficiency and process disruptions. Additionally, there is an
financing costs when providing invoice based finance to sellers. untapped potential of SCF because of insufficient dissemination
For sellers, planning incoming cash flows becomes easier and misunderstanding of the concept. These difficulties will
because the provided transparency enables them to further only be dissolved by standardisation and clear definition of
optimise their working capital position. But there is even better concepts, processes and technologies. Possible benefits of
news: the SBRF model allows for process efficiencies and better standardisation are cost advantages, facilitated implementation
risk management for all actors in the supply chain. A detailed and compatibility of technology and processes.
overview of the various benefits is provided in the table below.
E-invoicing as a prerequisite of SCF is already subject to

Financier Seller Buyer
standardisation efforts throughout Europe, reflected by different
1. Better risk assessment 1. B
etter cash flow 1. L
ess manual handling
2.Process efficiency and forecasting / visibility of incoming invoice guidelines and directives. Even so, a great deal remains to
resulting lower costs and working capital inquiries
be done. The SBRF Model is one step in the right direction
3. New financing markets optimisation 2.Improving financial
because it becomes 2. Less operational stability of the supply towards standardised processes of SCF and working capital
economically viable to debtor handling chain
finance sellers based optimisation. ➔
3. Better
access to 3. Optimise internal
on smaller invoices financing instruments: procurement and
faster, more choice, invoice approval
easier processes
4. P
ossibility of later
payment or discount
➔ 3. First steps were taken
Innopay, an e-business consultancy firm from the Netherlands,
the Dutch factoring company ‘voldaan’ and a client of voldaan
developed the SBRF Model in 2015. Within the scope of the

Prof. Dr. Michael Henke
Workshops on Standardisation in SCF by the Supply Chain
Director, Enterprise Logistics Finance Community, Innopay and the Fraunhofer Institute
Fraunhofer of Material Flow and Logistics (IML) presented the SBRF
demonstration since November 2015.
The “Proof of Concept” demonstrated the financier tracking the
About Prof. Dr. Michael Henke: Prof. Dr. Michael status of an outstanding invoice electronically. He gained insight
Henke completes the board of directors of into the progress of the invoice and could assess the associated
Fraunhofer IML as new director of the section risks.
Enterprise Logistics and he also holds the chair of

Enterprise Logistics at the faculty of Mechanical During the Workshop Series, the model, as well as development,
Engineering at TU Dortmund University. His research improvement and extension potentials have been discussed
focuses lie among others on the area of e.g. actively by the participants, European experts on SCF and
management of the Industry 4.0, purchasing and e-invoicing. Subjects to the discussions have also been technical
supply management, supply chain risk management specifications and the integration with other solutions.
and financial supply chain management.

4. More Proofs of Concept
About Fraunhofer: Fraunhofer IML is said to be first In the first half of 2016, the SBRF concept will extend to more
address for all questions with respect to holistic financiers, sellers, buyers and ERP solutions across Germany
logistics, the employees work on all fields of internal and Italy, at least. The well-established network of the SCF
and external logistics. Made-to-measure arranged Community and its members will provide a basis for the
teams create cross-industry and customer-specific development and geographical extension.
solutions in the area of materials handling, warehouse

management, supply chain management, simulation The practical integration with e-invoicing and SCF platforms and
supported business and system planning and also the standardisation along the dimensions of Legal, Operational,
traffic systems, closed loop economy, resources Functional and Technical dimensions will be investigated in detail.
logistics, building logistics and e-business.

For Germany, a planned SCF event at the House of Logistics
www.iml.fraunhofer.de and Mobility (HOLM) in Frankfurt organised by the Fraunhofer
IML and Innopay makes an important contribution to the Proof
of Concept. The event is scheduled for summer 2016 and will
include workshops on the SBRF Model. Moreover, further
Share this story aspects of SCF standardisation, according to the SCF research
focus of the Fraunhofer IML, will be covered.
INTIX
Turning Financial Messaging Data into Business Profit –
the new challenge for financial institutions
Long-term considered an impenetrable space dominated by 2. The extended digital environment leads to higher complexity
a few, the financial services industry is currently riding a giant for staff to find and interpret information given the growing
wave of entrepreneurial disruption, disintermediation, and number of data sources.
digital innovation. Recent developments such as the regulatory 3. A s critical information is siloed, enterprise-level reporting,
pressure as well as the criticality of business intelligence and decision-making, customer service and performance
customer experience are impacting banks more than ever. optimisation are impaired.
Financial Institutions (FIs) are caught between increasingly 4. Working across data sources can be tedious or impossible
strict and costly regulations, and the need to compete through given the variety of data semantics in use.
continuous innovation. The competitive position of incumbent 5. The regulatory mandates make effective information manage
institutions is at stake. ment no longer optional; As per Basel Committee on Banking
Supervision (BCBS) 239 regulation, Systemically Important
Today’s challenges determine tomorrow’s needs Banks (SIBs) must prioritise addressing gaps in their Risk
FIs face a series of strategic challenges that will determine their Data Aggregation and Reporting (RDAR) capabilities. Without
own future: these, senior management is unable to obtain an accurate and
1. Regulatory compliance – between 2008 and 2013, US banks in-depth picture of the risks the bank faces.
paid more than USD 100 billion in penalties and settlements. 6. A siloed approach to information management raises non-
2. Business intelligence – turning data into a competitive advantage compliance risks. Many banks continue to lack the high-quality
is nowadays seen as the Holy Grail. However, only a few data capture and aggregation processes full compliance requires.
succeed to become masters of their own data and conquer Big
Data problems. Information, whether based on structured and unstructured data, is
3. Customer service – Big Data and advanced analytics offer a increasingly seen as the lifeblood of the business. Regulatory bodies
transformative potential to predict the “next best actions” and identified this too and now require information management to be a
understand customer needs. foundational effort within all FIs for purposes of risk management
4. Risk management – regulatory bodies now require information and compliance reporting. This has led FIs to recognise their need
management to be a foundational effort within all FIs for pur to become information-centric.
poses of risk management, however, the responsibility around
data quality is fragmented and unclear within the organisation. The information management challenge
Given the continuous evolution of their IT infrastructure and
How will FIs be able to face such obstacles and in a cost effective adoption of digital processes, FIs deal with a myriad of systems
way? Which strategy will help them survive? (How) could technology and applications, all having their own software technology,
support the new needs in this journey? access method, security, user interfaces, data semantics and
structures, messaging formats, etc. This situation does not
Digitisation and regulatory compliance are simplify the work of the business and operations teams who
transformative have to face such complex environment and rely on a series of
The Financial Services industry faces an unprecedented accele unconnected tools to execute their daily jobs. Consequently,
ration of digitisation and regulations which leads to a series of activities requiring access to customer and transaction details,
major impacts: as well as history and statistics are severely slowed down.
1. The increased digitisation produces new electronic information, Examples include handling of customer enquiries, reporting on
digital processes, data semantics and structures as well as transactions towards regulators, reporting on SLAs to clients,
new IT systems within FIs. management information reports and so on.
FIs must consider those challenges strategically:
• First and foremost, they must elevate information to its deserved
status of strategic asset. This will help ensure that data is
actively managed on enterprise level for its embedded value to

André Casterman
be realised.
Chief Marketing Officer • They also need to equip themselves with the right technology in
INTIX order to turn information to their advantage.
However, some barriers exist:
• Integration with legacy systems: many legacy systems make it
About André Casterman: André Casterman is difficult to extract data and may not be best suited for Big Data
Chief Marketing Officer at INTIX and a Member of technologies.
the Banking ExCo of the ICC. During the past 5 • Connecting data silos: there is no uniform view of data and most
years, André was SWIFT’s head of the corporate organisations have not integrated disparate data sources given
& trade markets in charge of strategy, governance the complexity of the task.
and product initiatives. André Casterman has two

master’s degrees from VUB and a master’s degree Data integration tools are becoming key to connecting various
from ICHEC. data sources and data sets, and delivering on the promise of
information or data management.
About INTIX: INTIX helps financial institutions and

corporates address financial data management FIs, become master of your data
challenges in four strategic areas: regulatory By conquering Big Data challenges, FIs will be able to draw a
compliance, business intelligence, customer competitive advantage through enhanced strategic decision-
services and risk management. INTIX helps its making, improved customer service and effective risk management.
clients retrieve, consolidate and reconcile any type

of financial messaging data and protects them from Information management technology and governance are
any IT complexity and obsolescence issues. key to break down the organisational silos that typically exist
within financial institutions to provide a complete picture of an
www.intix.eu institution’s financial transactions and client information across
info@intix.eu a myriad of sources. Not only does this make it easy for FIs to
respond to the increasing requirements for compliance and
reporting, it also provides the opportunity to turn such data into
valuable insights and information for the customers’ benefit.
Information management tools will help financial institutions
address a series of strategic objectives including: regulatory
Share this story readiness and responsiveness; enhanced strategic decision-
making; faster customer service; effective risk management.
In sum, FIs that become master of their own data will benefit from
a competitive advantage which they will turn into business profit.
Commercial Payments
NAPCP
Gaining Management Support for Your P-Card Programme
Achieving buy-in of the card programme, especially by • statement of purpose (what you are seeking—your goal)
management, is a frequently cited challenge by the NAPCP's • where you are today (current metrics/Key Performance Indicators
audience. The concern is justifiable. Lack of buy-in can result (KPIs) and how they compare to industry benchmarks), where
in never getting a programme implemented, having a static card you want to be and “why now?”
programme or the elimination of the programme altogether. • how your idea aligns with organisational goals
Whether you are considering implementing a new programme • input from stakeholders plus common objections industry-wide
or expanding the current one, there are several questions to (if different from stakeholder input); address any concerns and
address that can help in preparing your case to management. objections with facts
• What are you seeking buy-in for and from whom? Do you want • c ost justifications to support the value proposition, such as
to “sell” the existing P-Card programme to a new manager or anticipated and/or actual process savings; reductions in full-
do you want to propose programme expansion? time equivalents (FTEs), especially within the procurement and/
or accounts payable departments; and other hard- and soft-
• What is the rationale for your goal? Management will only buy dollar savings
into something that benefits the organisation and is supported • implementation plan, if applicable (e.g., for programme expansion)
by facts, including a cost justification.
Present cost saving benefits such as the cost of traditional
• How does your goal support the goals of the organisation or cheques versus P-Cards. If your organisation has not completed
solve an organisational challenge? Management decision- an internal process cost analysis, use the NAPCP average
making is driven by accountability for goals and the ability to process costs shown below.
resolve issues.
• Are you aware of common objections to P-Card programmes?
1 Data
from the 2014 Purchasing Card Benchmark Survey Results
by RPMG Research Corporation, a report based on more than
3,123 survey responses from end-user organisations.
• W ho are the stakeholders? There is nothing more defeating 1 As specified within the 2014 Purchasing Card Benchmark
Survey Results by RPMG Research Corporation.
than trying to move an idea or goal forward, then learning that 2 Based on average monthly card spend of USD 1M and average
someone with “veto power” was left out of the discussions transaction size of USD 559, per the results of a 2015 NAPCP
poll.
inadvertently. List who should be involved and why. They might
provide good input in support of the card programme and/or
express concerns, such as the common objections listed above. If expanding an existing programme, it is important to consider
the value your card provider can add to this process. They can
The Business Case provide an analysis of your accounts payable vendor file—
The next step is to create a solid business case based on the identifying those vendors who accept card payments. ➔
answered questions above, as well as other common business
case elements. Include:
➔ Working with the “low hanging fruit” can help your organisation
reap immediate benefits. The larger ticket transactions can be
moved to card-type payments as well, with the most popular
being a virtual or electronic card payment method.

Terri Brustad
Manager of Content Services Continue to Provide Results-Driven Communication

NAPCP It is important to relay results and successes to management.
Use the following keys to successful communication:
• B e brief by limiting communication to a one-page summary.
Put conclusions first—give highlights up front and supporting
About Terri Brustad: Terri Brustad, CPCP, is the detail second.
NAPCP Manager of Content Services. Her previous • Title the document, presentation or email subject line with a key
experience includes 10 years in the Commercial message (e.g., “P-Card Program Saved USD 4M in 2015” versus
Card industry, mainly in the role of a public-sector “P-Card Program Report Attached”).
P-Card Administrator. Terri achieved the Certified • Focus on the facts. Show numbers as often as possible and
Purchasing Card Professional (CPCP) credential in summarise whether the numbers meet, fall below or exceed
2009. expectations. Then explain. Verify numbers with other team
members to build a coalition of support and ensure that you
About NAPCP: The NAPCP is a membership- have the complete picture.
based professional association committed to • F acts and figures must be formatted consistently from one
advancing Commercial Card and Payment communication to the next, allowing for easy comparison.
professionals and industry practices worldwide. • In verbal and written discussion, keep your presentation analytical.
The NAPCP is a respected voice in the industry, • If asked by management to give results “on the fly,” synthesise
serving as an impartial resource for members at all the key points for management into three to four concise bullet
experience levels in the public and private sectors. points. Add recommendations or alternative courses of action
The 2016 NAPCP European Conference will be if you have time. Stay ahead of management requests by
held in London on 23 June 2016. monitoring your KPIs frequently.
• Ask to be part of upcoming meetings and do not be afraid to be
www.napcp.org proactive rather than reactive.
What if They Say “No”?

Explore what could change a “no” into a “yes.” When you are
ready to address the issue again with new insight, go back to
your stakeholders. It is generally okay to respectfully disagree
with management, but, as noted earlier, ensure you have the
supporting documentation to make your point. Finally, know when
Share this story it is time to move on. However, moving on does not mean giving
up on the programme altogether. It is still prudent to share the
status of the programme.
KAE
Commercial Payments under the Scrutiny of New Technology
New technology and innovation are words typically associated with Mobile and wearable technology not only provides a more
consumer payments. Whilst technology and payments continue streamlined and frictionless payment experience but also offers
to converge in our consumer lives, the pace of convergence and benefits such as more accurate employee location tracking
innovation has accelerated in the commercial payments space. (helping to reduce fraud incidents and supporting an employer’s
Recent innovations have impacted corporate payment behaviour, duty of care).
but are yet to truly disrupt commercial payments. In this article,
we call out three themes that hold the potential to disrupt the The convergence of commercial payment solutions with mobile
payments space. devices is a salient trend and one that will remain at the crest of the
innovation wave. We have already seen a number of mobile apps
Shared ledger technologies being developed for commercial banking and commercial cards
There has been increasing interest in shared ledger technologies, being included as part of digital wallets – this is only the beginning.
with many global financial institutions looking into its use as a
commercially viable tool, e.g. for trade finance transactions, for Wearable payment development has also gathered pace,
more streamlined cross-border payments, etc. be it wristbands, smartwatches or NFC-enabled clothing.
Device battery life (imposed by device size and current screen
Shared ledgers, or blockchains, are digital and publically open energy consumption), data privacy and security remain key
records allowing transactions to take place without an inter barriers to wider adoption.
mediary such as a clearing house. The open source nature of these
ledgers allows corporates to trade directly with any counterparties Biometrics will become interwoven with mobile and wearable
around the globe, offering various cost and time-saving benefits. technology. Passwords can be broken and authentication will
Uneditable records are also created and shared with anyone shift towards identifiers like facial features, fingerprint, retina,
associated with a ‘trade’ to enhance control and transparency. heartbeat and vein recognition. All of which could be performed
by a smartphone or wearable device.

The challenge for the industry is that wider adoption will impact
existing operating models as corporates come to expect faster Although challenges remain surrounding data privacy and educating
and lower-cost transactions. This technology could also drive corporate clients, biometric technology will eventually help increase
disintermediation within the commercial payments space, e.g. by payment security and provide more convenience when making
removing the need for the card payment schemes. payments.
Mobile, Wearables & Biometrics Virtual cards

The rise of the mobile savvy and the constantly connected Virtual cards, or single-use accounts, also have the potential to
customer is forcing traditional providers to rethink how they disrupt the payments space. Corporates, travel companies and
deliver commercial payment solutions to satisfy ever-changing governments increasingly understand the benefits these solutions
and increasingly demanding expectations. offer (real-time expense capture, enhanced control, security, recon
ciliation and reporting) and spend levels have skyrocketed in
Mobility is a key word and mobile devices and wearable techno countries where virtual cards are being effectively marketed.
logy are ideal bedfellows. People are increasingly mobile in both Growth has also been fuelled by the product’s success in unlocking
their corporate and personal lives and expect technological B2B and increasingly T&E spend that has traditionally been
advancements to support this. captured by other payment solutions, e.g. cash, cheque, etc. ➔
➔ Virtual cards hold the potential to disrupt the commercial
payments space on two fronts:
1) Physical cards are likely to disappear
2) These solutions hold the potential to drive a step change in card

Chris Holmes
adoption and usage levels
Senior Vice President
KAE The challenge for the industry is clearly communicating and
providing compelling evidence of the benefits that virtual cards
offer and ensuring sales teams are trained to sell the solutions
over and above traditional ones, e.g. corporate cards. To help
About Chris Holmes: Chris leads various work unlock the opportunities in underpenetrated industries such as
streams across the Financial Services practice. telco, construction, and healthcare, etc., issuers must develop
He has managed multiple global projects across tailored solutions to cater for any idiosyncrasies and overcome
the payments, banking, FinTech, AltFi and the card acceptance challenge.
tech industries. His specialist skills are geared

to NPD, sizing and opportunity assessments, The Future
benchmarking, and best practice identification. Technology holds the key to disrupting commercial payments
and the growing FinTech movement will support this. Traditional
About KAE: KAE is a strategic marketing consultancy commercial payment providers will look towards and work more
that has provided support to some of the world’s closely with FinTech’s as an alternative source of innovation to their
largest payment and tech brands for the past 25 own product development and delivery functions. The opportunity
years. Operating globally from a London HQ, KAE for banks is to build and launch disruptive technologies more
has provided consulting and strategic advice in quickly. The challenge is picking the right FinTech(s) that will help
more than 50 countries across three core areas: deliver scalable solutions. In the short-term, we expect issuers to
Insight, Strategy and Analytics. increasingly focus their attention on developing virtual solutions
and integrating these onto mobile and wearable devices.
www.kae.com
Stargazing into the future, wearables will be the game changer
as mobility becomes ever more important. Wearables will also
be the bridging technology for embeddables. In the next 10-15
years, embedded chips in humans could become a reality.
We are increasingly connected and interact with technology in
our personal and business lives, and embeddables are the next
logical step. More sophisticated chips will soon replace wearable
technology, such as payment devices and fitness bands, and will
help us all get used to a more connected and augmented lifestyle.
Share this story As a concept, it is well aligned to payments. Embedded and inner-
connected biometrics will enhance security and offer a more
seamless experience.
The future looks bright for commercial payments but will not be
without its challenges!
Trade & Finance
Supply Chain Finance Terminology Drafting Group
Financing International Supply Chains: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Supply Chain Finance (SCF) was the subject of serious debate realise that language has been a barrier rather than an enabler
among senior practitioners, just a while ago. Was SCF a of understanding).
legitimate, substantive new proposition in the financing of trade
and supply chains, or was it a hollow marketing device aimed Leading industry associations gathered over two years ago,
at countering the threat of bank disintermediation as businesses and agreed that it would be valuable to begin the process of
decisively shifted to trade on open account terms? devising a common set of global terminology around SCF.
The Euro Banking Association, Factors Chain International,
The initial innovation and contribution of SCF were less in the ITFA (The International Trade and Forfaiting Association), the
specifics of financing techniques, and more around the shift International Factors Group (since merged) and BAFT (the
from a limited bilateral view of trade to a holistic, network-based Bankers Association for Finance and Trade) came together with
view of trade based on complex ecosystems and commercial the ICC Banking Commission to create and launch the Global
relationships. Supply Chain Finance Forum (GSCFF). Its global drafting team
and the steering committee, were mandated to review existing
The debate about the substance of SCF can now be put to material, develop and disseminate a draft set of definitions,
rest, as its adoption grows, and as the techniques of SCF are circulate widely for comment, and update to a final version which
increasingly recognised in both domestic and international was then to be the focus of a global advocacy campaign to drive
supply chains. What’s more, public entities in the UK, the adoption by market stakeholders.
Netherlands, the US and elsewhere begin to embrace certain
forms of SCF to driving liquidity and affordable financing to the The “Standard Definitions for Techniques of Supply Chain
globally important but typically underserved SME segment. Finance” was launched at the 4th Annual ICC Supply Chain
Finance Summit Singapore under the auspices of the ICC
Additionally, the usage rates of SCF programmes and facilities Academy. The setting was particularly appropriate given the
have grown significantly, now reaching 80-90% or higher. In educational nature of the publication, and the reality that major
comparison, programmes were once considered successful if international supply chains today are at least partly anchored in
they exhibited usage rates of 30% or more. Asia, where SCF propositions are expected to show significant
growth in the coming years.
SCF development and adoption rates have varied significantly
by region and by individual institution, be it a bank, multilateral, The focus of SCF in some areas, thus far, has been on what we
ECA, fintech or another market player, and as a result, a veritable refer to in the Definitions as “Payables Finance”, to the extent
‘maze’ of definitions, terminology and common parlance that this single technique has often, incorrectly, been referred
developed relative to SCF. Leading institutions effectively to as Supply Chain Finance. Financial institutions, as well as
developed their own terminology in the absence of anything else non-bank providers, have placed a significant priority on these
in the market, invested in marketing collateral and branding, and buyer-led structures, with supplier onboarding being a common
devised technology solutions on the basis of their techniques challenge. And yet we are seeing demand for the development
and related nomenclature. This extended to the point that it of end-to-end solutions across the procure-to-pay and order-
has been difficult to engage in any discussion around SCF to-cash cycles, with an increasing number of market actors
without the need to pause and check on mutual understanding venturing beyond some of the familiar techniques to begin to
(or worse, progress a discussion or interaction, only to later embrace, for example, distributor finance. ➔
➔ Large supplier communities are based in emerging Asia
and Africa, yet, major economies like China and Indonesia are
experiencing great increases in disposable income, and thus,
engaging more on the consumer side of supply chains. The

Alexander R. Malaket
combined dynamics are shaping economic activity and flows in
President ways that need a wider range of financing and risk mitigation
OPUS Advisory Services International Inc. solutions, including end-to-end SCF.
Deputy Head of the Executive Committee
ICC Banking Commission
Supply Chain Finance is defined as the use of financing and risk
Chair
mitigation practices and techniques to optimise the management
SCF Terminology Drafting Group
of the working capital and liquidity invested in supply chain
processes and transactions. SCF is typically applied to
About Alexander R. Malaket: A recognised specialist open account trade and is triggered by supply chain events.
in international trade, including trade and supply Visibility of underlying trade flows by the finance provider(s) is
chain finance, Mr. Malaket has advised government, a necessary component of such financing arrangements which
international institution, banking and corporate clients can be enabled by a technology platform.
around the world, developed and delivered training Source: Standard Definitions for Techniques of Supply Chain
materials and seminars, and authored numerous Finance, 2016
white papers, briefing and policy papers and research

reports on a variety of topics in international business, Practitioners and financial institutions based in Asia are proactively
finance and international development. working to develop their SCF propositions in response to evolving
market demand and region-specific practices. With ASEAN
About International Chamber of Commerce (ICC): integration progressing, the Trans-Pacific Partnership advancing
The ICC Banking Commission is a leading global and intra-regional trade growing in importance, the central role of
rule-making body for the banking industry. It cross-border supply chains and SCF, in particular, will increase
produces universally accepted rules and guidelines in the next several years as enablers of trade, development, and
for international banking practice. With 85 years of inclusion.
experience and more than 600 members in +100

countries, the ICC Banking Commission – the The Standard Definitions are a “living document” meant to evolve
largest commission of ICC, the World Business with market practice, the needs of clients, financiers, regulatory
Organization – has rightly gained a reputation as the authorities and others. The next phase will focus on dissemination,
most authoritative voice in the field of trade finance. education and advocacy in support of global adoption.
www.iccwbo.org This is the start of a journey that will only speed up in adoption,
impact, and importance. SCF: an idea whose time has come.
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SCF Community
Improving Access to Finance for SMEs with the Open RFI Project
Introduction Thirdly, a spend analysis of the corporate’s supplier base needs
For a financial service that claims to have a tripartite win-win-win to be made, in order to support a clear and segmented approach
value, current market adoption of Supply Chain Finance (SCF) to offer selected suppliers the intended SCF solution. Finally, in
is still in its infancy. As the credit rating of the larger corporate order to fully reap the benefits of an SCF solution, the internal
is leveraged for SCF solutions, suppliers have faster access to processes have to be analysed focussing on the efficiency of the
cheaper liquidity from invoices. The large corporate can achieve procure-to-pay process.
working capital benefits through payment term harmonisation,
or it can reduce the COGS (Cost of Goods Sold). Despite clear RFI process and preliminary results
benefits, the cost and complexity of onboarding small suppliers In total, over 30 vendors were invited to participate, and eventually
have resulted in a slower uptake in this group of suppliers and 23 completed the RFI: ABN Amro, Asyx, C2FO, CRX Markets,
hence, there has been little possibility to take advantage of the Flinqer, GT Nexus, ING, Kyriba, OpusCapita, Orbian, Oxygen
benefits SCF can offer. Finance, PrimeRevenue, ProQuidity, Rabobank, Remitia, Riskco,
Santander, Taulia, Terbit, TradeShift, Trefi Finance, Tungsten and
The Open Request for Information (RFI), launched by the Urica. The RFI contained seven categories and participants were
SCF Community on behalf of a group of Dutch multinational ranked relatively in each category.
corporations, invited over 30 vendors to show how they would
apply SCF solutions to smaller suppliers – those with volumes of 1) Qualifications and Strategy: The proposed SCF solution had
EUR 200,000 and below. Corporates recognise the importance to be well proven in the market and therefore, participants
of SME suppliers and are looking for ways to improve their were required to give insights of their track record.
access to finance. This recognition is underlined by the support
of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs for the Betaalme.nu – 2) Solution Scope: Vendors should be able to onboard suppliers
initiative in early 2015, which is aimed at injecting liquidity into in various countries and currencies and work together with
Dutch SMEs. other liquidity providers. Half of the vendors claimed to have
a global solution covering all currencies while the rest focused
The objective of the Open RFI was threefold: 1) to provide more on Europe.
participating corporates with an overview of available SCF
solutions and solution providers 2) to facilitate structured 3) P latform Technology: Vendors had to elaborate how their
engagement between SCF solution providers and corporates 3) SCF platform interacts with current IT systems and P2P
to perform a structured analysis of the SCF market and available processes on the corporate side. Almost all platforms were
solutions for SMEs. This project allowed for direct comparison of accessible online, flexible to adapt to current infrastructure,
leading SCF vendors for the first time in history. and offered manual to fully integrated options to connect to
the corporate’s ERP.
Preparations for an SCF implementation

There are a number of things corporates should address before 4) Implementation and onboarding: Given the scope of the
starting with an SCF implementation. Firstly, the overall SCF RFI (small suppliers), fast onboarding was deemed crucial to
strategy should align with strategy on other areas, such as participating corporates. Differences exist between vendors
procurement, finance and IT. Next, due to the multidisciplinary in terms of availability of online resources, KYC and due
character, various internal departments have to be involved in diligence and administrative requirements. ➔
the setup and enrolment of an SCF program.
➔
5) Transaction Volume: Availability of both funding and platform
is an important factor in selecting a solution provider. The
benefits and pitfalls of various sources of funds and structures
are examined and collated.

Matthijs van Bergen Steven van der Hooft
Researcher SCF CEO 6) A ccounting & Legal: Maintaining trade payable status is
Windesheim Capital Chains important for corporates, and accounting regulations should
be considered. Each vendor responded with its legal structure
to reassure no reclassification issues would arise.
About Matthijs van Bergen: Matthijs currently holds 7) Incumbent SCF provider: Since the majority of large buyers
a position as researcher SCF at Windesheim and have existing SCF programs in place, vendors were asked if
is responsible for developing business cases for and how they would be able to co-exist. All vendors indicated
Corporates and for the project management of Open that working side-by-side would be possible, but not all of
RFI. He studied Supply Chain Finance and is an them had prior experience with this matter.
experienced independent consultant for over 5 years.

Outcome of RFI project
About Steven van der Hooft: Steven gained extensive The relative ranking, combined with a weighting of the importance
experience in the field of Supply Chain Finance for each category by the supporting corporates, has generated
through roles as director banking at Inchainge, senior the final shortlist. The SCF Community named C2FO, ING, Orbian,
management consultant at Capgemini Consulting and PrimeRevenue, Santander and Taulia as the six vendors in its
while working at ING. In 2015, he founded Capital ‘Open RFI’ project. All six have presented their responses to the
Chains, a company that specialises in Training & Open RFI during the SCF Community Forum in Amsterdam on
Consultancy on Financial Supply Chain Management 18th November 2015.
issues for both banks as well as corporates.

By gathering and assessing available solutions in the marketplace,
About SCF Community: The Supply Chain Finance the SCF Community has improved transparency for its corporates
Community is a not-for-profit group for all those by providing an overview of SCF solutions and facilitating
involved in supply chains: manufacturers, transport engagement. This initiative contributes to the Community’s
companies, banks, consultancies, technology goals in developing knowledge on SCF while simultaneously
providers and academics. Its mission is to share increasing adoption and standards in the practitioner’s field.
experience, best practice and new research, linking The whitepaper that contains both a detailed analysis of the
across finance, treasury, supply chain operations, SCF market, as well as a checklist for corporates interested in
logistics and procurement. offering their own SCF solution can be downloaded from the
www.scfacademy.org soon.
www.scfcommunity.org
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Magnus Lind, The Talent Show – Supply Chain Finance
If Supply Chain Finance is Supplier-Centric, Financial Supply Chain is Customer-Centric
Fintech is not only disrupting banks; it’s disrupting corporate The champion to implement SCF is often the treasury department
finance as well. At The Talent Show – Supply Chain Finance whereas it is procurement that eventually owns and runs the
conference in Malmo, Sweden in April of 2016, both corporates programme. We’ve detected the CPO (Chief Procurement
and vendors discussed the significant changes we can expect in Officer) usually has significant acumen to drive other supply
the way we engage with suppliers and customers in the future. chain initiatives with his or hers combined customer and supplier
relations. What the CPO lacks in financial skills are many
The Talent Show highlighted the increasingly popular Supply times balanced through a sense of urgency to understand the
Chain Finance (SCF) solutions as one essential ingredient to rationalisation potential and how it improves the overall business.
cater for the unbalanced capabilities of bank financing in the At the Show, we heard about initiatives to bridge stakeholders
corporate sector. Investment graded companies enjoy excellent over the supply chain with treasurers and procurement actively
access however, SMEs and sub-investment grade companies working together. Anthony Buchanan, Treasurer Procurement at
still suffer. Change is nowhere on the horizon. SABMiller gave a much-appreciated presentation of how the two
departments work together to build a sustainable chain for both
the large and the small suppliers.
We heard fintech leaders introducing their solutions over the whole
FSC. Taulia on supplier finance, SAP Ariba on supplier networks,
e-invoicing and their new partnership with PrimeRevenue. We heard
Basware introduce “corporate financial social responsibility” and
its new financing service. Kurt Cavano from GT Nexus presented
ways to connect the physical supply chain with the financial one
and finally, Danny Aranda from Ripple shared how blockchain is
taking over as the main rail for payments. Gerard Chick, Chief
Knowledge Officer at Optimum Procurement, gave an appreciated
SCF is one remedy to support the first tier suppliers of very large endnote at The Talent Show.
customers with fair priced and sufficient financing. SCF has
many benefits and the solutions have matured and now We are continuously improving our abilities to adapt quickly.
provide reliable backbones for financing of approved invoices. Being big isn't enough to sustain when new competitors are
Yet, despite all the advantages of SCF, it only solves a limited unbundling large businesses in almost all industries. The need
amount of challenges in the whole corporate supply chain. At for large corporations to think and act more entrepreneurial is
The Talent Show, we discussed the supply and demand chain imperative. Peter Carlsson, recent CPO at Tesla explained how
holistically and mapped SCF as a subsection of the financial Tesla is driven by a few group-wide targets at a time providing
supply chain (FSC). The FSC is much broader in scope, includes high speed over ground. Many large companies have too complex
all tiers of suppliers and also the full demand chain. With SCF as a strategies and objectives even creating conflicting behaviour in
base, we need to include second and higher tier suppliers and our their own organisations. Enterprises have to rethink their models
financial processing and the customers into the mindset. If SCF is of management to fight off the attacks or they risk being killed
supplier-centric, FSC is customer-centric. by a thousand cuts from a multitude of new entrants especially
if they are organised to fight the single cuts from their main (big)
competitors. ➔
➔ The EVP and CFO at Turkcell, Murat Dogan Erden, proved
in his keynote that even mature companies can adapt quickly to
game changers. Turkcell is a dominant telecoms operator that
has successfully managed the transition from a pay-per-minute

Magnus Lind
market through providing world leading surf speeds, content
co-founder and services. Turkcell is also exploiting its credit management
The Talent Show competence to expand into consumer finance. Turkcell will use
its market access through all the connected devices.
Developing the FSC doesn’t only consist of cutting costs and
About Magnus Lind: Magnus Lind is co-founder lead times. It also enables expanding the core business offering
of The Talent Show. He has a background as an with financial components.
international business executive in Europe, SE Asia

and North America, and he has founded companies
in 7 different countries where he acted as CEO,
board director and investor. The Talent Show puts
innovation and disruption above case studies and
legacy thinking.
About The Talent Show: The Talent Show is a

corporate driven event focusing on the whole
corporate Financial Supply Chain (CFSC) and how
it links to the physical chain. The audience consists
of CFO and CPO, supply chain, treasurers, and
IT. Participants include Sandvik, Turkcell, Port of
Rotterdam, Abengoa, Octal, Arriva, DONG Energy,
Ericsson and SABMiller.
www.supply-chain-finance.rocks
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Anita Gerrits
Supply Chain Finance, Time for SMEs to Take Position
For a long time, the deployment of supply chain finance (SCF) With the current interest rates, it doesn’t make much sense to
was seen to be the domain of large corporates only, but times free up cash to put in on a savings account, where the return
are changing. Nowadays, large SMEs are also able to reap the is zero or even negative. Freeing up cash enables companies
benefits of innovative ways to free up liquidity, reduce working to take advantage of (investment) opportunities to increase the
capital and approve their R.O.I. R.O.I., thereby improving their overall financial healthiness. In
a low-margin business environment, offering a program with
Imagine an SME company supplying goods to retailers and a attractive early payment discount terms to your suppliers is a
significant part of its turnover is achieved with only a few large way to improve your gross margin and generate a high return
customers. The DSO has increased dramatically over the past on excess cash. And yes, working capital increases, but less
few years as these retailers have increased their payment terms than the decrease that was generated on the receivables side,
to 60 or even 90 days. Some of these customers have a reverse so in total working capital is being reduced and your balance
factoring program in place, but don’t offer access to all their SME sheet total is shortened. Dynamic discounting is one of the
suppliers; some don’t have a program in place. The margins in Payables (Finance) solutions that is growing in popularity in the
the business are tight, and although the suppliers are begging SME world. As banks and solution providers have lowered their
for early payments, extending the terms with them seems to be entrance barriers, this solution is now within reach of a larger
the only way possible to fill the working capital gap. What other part of the business community. The benefit for the supplier is
options does this company have? that he reduces his working capital position (DSO) and gets paid
earlier at an attractive discount, below its WACC to ensure a
One of the options is to consider Receivables Finance (RF). better R.O.I.
This solution allows the company to sell open invoices (receivables)
of customers with a good credit standing to a third party on a non- Another option for the SME is to offer an SCF (read: Reverse
recourse basis. As this is classified as a true sale of receivables, factoring) program to selected suppliers. In that way, there is
whereby the default risk on the customer gets transferred in full no impact on the working capital position of the buyer in case
to the third party that buys the invoices, the receivables position the payment terms remain unchanged, or alternatively when
(DSO) will decrease with the amount of invoices sold. The discount terms are extended the payables position will increase and so
paid for early payment is based on the creditworthiness of its working capital decreases. The good news is that some banks
customers, and presuming these are healthy, these rates are and platform providers indeed are starting to offer large SME
attractive. For instance, this is only a fraction of what traditional companies to set up their own SCF program. The downside,
factoring solutions would cost. The other benefit is that the however, is that the discount rates the funders charge for
company selling the invoices has full control over what and when medium-sized companies are fairly high in comparison to the
they sell. Flexible, on-demand access to cash is what it delivers. rates for big creditworthy corporates. This can be explained
Although his the creditworthiness of the customer is key, the mainly by the sheer purchase volume of big corporates versus
customer is not directly involved in the transaction; and oesn’t medium-sized companies; the size of the SCF program is, thus,
even need to be made aware of it. As the solution carries the word of a different order of magnitude. What’s more, the risk profile of
“Finance” in its name, it might suggest that RF is a loan or a specific SME companies is often rated relatively high in comparison to
type of debt. Neither of them is the case. What it boils down to is corporates, which has a significant impact on the risk premium
that the seller gets upfront cash on receivables, and not just 80% component of the total discount rate. ➔
of the full invoiced amount, but up to 95%. PrimeRevenue, one of
the leading SCF solution providers, successfully implemented this
innovative solution for a wide range of clients worldwide.
➔ Some banks and platform providers offer both Dynamic
Discounting as well as SCF, with the option to switch between
the two might an opportunity arise for the buyer to invest its cash
for other purposes than to prepay its suppliers. A bank will then
Anita Gerrits
be brought in to take over the funding.
Supply Chain Finance Specialist
All in all, with all developments in the SCF market it would make
sense for SMEs to explore the potential benefits of SCF for the
business they are in. Having said that, SCF awareness is still
not very widespread amongst SMEs despite several initiatives
About Anita Gerrits: For the past 7 years, Anita to change that for the better. What a pity. In the end, there is
has been a strong believer in and advocate of the nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
concept of SCF. She provides consultancy support

in this exciting relative new area of finance. She
also organises workshops, acts as guest speaker
and trainer to business management as well to
students to create awareness and understanding
of this topic. It all began in 2009, when she played
a leading role in achieving a cash flow turnaround
of the European Consumer Business of Kimberly-
Clark through a massive reduction in working
capital. She has a corporate background, studied
business economics, credit rating advisory and
business valuation.
www.g-ray.biz
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Exchange Summit with 2 major E-Invoicing events in 2016
From E-Invoicing to ETS
Supply Chain Financing E T ICK : e10

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0 FRE ow on om/fre
10 ply n it.c
Ap summ
e -
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. e xch
www
June 7 and 8, 2016 October 10 and 11, 2016
Orlando, Florida, USA Barcelona, Spain
Key topics 2016

• E-Invoicing entering a new era – global market development and forecast
• E-Invoicing from a corporate and governmental perspective
• Implementing tax compliance in a paperless world
• Compliance and fraud prevention within E-Invoicing
• Driving forward AR/AP and end-to-end P2P automation
• Global standardisation and status of E-Invoicing interoperability
• Best practice in onboarding customers to E-Invoicing
• Supply chain financing – new opportunities and challenges
Within our two major E-Invoicing events in 2016, you will

• network with more than 500 participants
• meet experts from over 40 different countries
• evaluate solutions from 50+ service providers
• benefit from exclusive keynotes, best-practices and discussions
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E-invoicing
Comarch EDI
Cross-border Invoicing – The Real Challenge For Multinational Projects
Global approach with local adjustments person has to use certified invoicing software (assuming the
Nowadays, a significant majority of enterprises cooperates with annual turnover of more than EUR 100 000). What is common
foreign business partners. What’s more, an increasing number for both Portugal and Hungary is that the solution should be able
of organisations have been changing their document flow from to present the data for audit purposes in the country’s defined
paper to digital formats to optimise processes in the supply SAF-T formats. When considering the form to assure authenticity
chain. Thus, there has been growing demand for solutions and integrity, besides business controls, EDI and electronic
enabling onboarding of partners worldwide, exchanging the signature should be considered. Then local requirements differ
whole set of messages in the supply chain (order-to-cash / for outsourcing of invoice issuance (unilateral or bilateral,
procure-to-pay) and guaranteeing legal compliance, project written, with some content requirements), notifications of tax
management and local support. Let’s explore the electronic administration, the obligation of EDI agreement based on EU
invoicing process in particular, since it is an essential part of the 1994 Recommendation, system documentation describing
efficient B2B collaboration. software and procedures, to name only a few.
Various legislations in force In the archiving area, the unification is even lower. Besides various
In Europe, the Council Directive 2010/45/EU has been retention periods and tax authorities’ notification obligation, Italy
implemented in the Member States in 2013 which treats paper requires an invoice preservation process, France has ‘partner
and electronic invoices equally. Also, it is widely known that file’ and ‘summary list’ functionalities, while in Germany, the law
each taxable person shall determine the way to ensure the introduces three access mechanisms known as Z1 (direct access
authenticity of the origin, the integrity of the content and the to electronic data), Z2 (indirect) and Z3 (through the transfer of
legibility of the invoice. extracted data).
50 000
Challenges to approach just outside EU borders
99.8% Assuming that all peculiarities were analysed (mostly thanks
PROCESSED
DOCUMENTS to the EU documentation available in many languages) and
ACTIVE USERS FROM
technical design and implementation were done, yet, even within
40 COUNTRIES in less than
30 seconds Europe further adjustments are needed. For instance, take into
consideration Norway’s restrictions of storage, Switzerland’s

Capacity of up to
Service
Desk in 400 DOCUMENTS
PER SECOND
requirement for the service provider to be registered in the local
12
commercial register and the fact that electronic invoices have to
confirmed by tests carried
out by an independent be ensured by electronic signature.
institution
500
Of course, the European model, called post-audit, does not
LANGUAGES rule worldwide. Beyond the EU borders, the regulations are
applications MILLION more complicated. In Turkey or Russia, there is a clearance
available in DOCUMENTS model implemented in which an electronic invoice must be
17 languages were transmitted in 2015
sent to the tax administration or licensed, certified providers for
authorisation before, during or just after issuance as an original
However, each Member State defines its rulings on electronic tax invoice. LATAM has implemented the model and observes
invoicing and in spite of progress, even within the EU there are high penetration of electronic invoice usage.
significant differences. For instance, in Portugal, the taxable
➔ Thus, the cross-border invoicing issuance for companies
with subsidiaries worldwide is a real challenge where the law is
applicable (i.e. country of establishment, place of VAT registration,
transport, invoicing goods or services).

Bartłomiej Wójtowicz
Product Development Manager Electronic invoice still on the rise

Comarch EDI Despite the legal and technical obstacles, enterprises’ awareness
of process automation with electronic invoicing and cost
reduction has been steadily increasing. Most of them would take
the decision to start e-invoicing shortly if the legislation would be
About Bartłomiej Wójtowicz: He has over 10 years clearer and standardised. On the other hand, the governments
of experience in the field of B2B communication are aware of the scale of the VAT fraud and are looking for tools
in the supply chain. Initially responsible for to seal the system – unfortunately, each country is trying to find
the EDI market development in Southern and its own way.
Central Europe, he is currently responsible for the

development of Comarch EDI portfolio. However, it is highly unlikely that the EU will implement the
clearance model; there are several initiatives to speed up
About Comarch EDI: Comarch EDI is a B2B the process. The Member States decided to organise multi-
platform, which provides a competitive advantage stakeholders forums to implement a European Standard for
by a fast and secure data exchange with business e-invoicing (expected in 2017) and increase the interoperability
partners. The solution provides the automation of among service providers. Hopefully, the Directive 2014/55/
data processing throughout the supply chain: from EU on electronic invoicing in public procurement will prove to
the procurement process, through the logistics, to be a significant milestone resulting in the mass adoption of
invoicing and payment processing. electronic invoices in the structured form (not PDF invoices)
and public authorities will realise the benefits of e-invoicing and
www.comarch.com hasten the implementation of common, understandable and
unified legislation on cross-border e-invoicing. In a nutshell,
the stage of market education and convincing towards adopting
automated invoices processing is coming to an end. Most of
the enterprises have launched or consider the implementation
of e-invoicing at a country level in the short term. Currently, the
biggest challenge is to enable the smooth extension of their
projects on the transnational level. Finding a service provider with
vast international experience is essential. Comarch EDI enables

Click here for the company profile
compliance with all local legal requirements. Its membership
in organisations such as the GS1 or the European E-Invoicing
Share this story Service Providers Association (EESPA) guarantees that the
company is a reliable partner. Comarch EDI has cooperated with
GS1 and EESPA for many years in several countries to make
sure that our services are of the highest quality and the solution
is compliant with national and international requirements.
Simplerinvoicing
Why ‘Openness' Should Be The #1 Selection Criteria for Any E-invoicing RFP Process
In the previous editions of this report, I talked about the The ‘closed’ service providers typically embrace the paradigm
opportunities e-invoicing brings in supply chain finance and that all partners have to be on-boarded on the provider’s
streamlining payments and collection processes. I also talked e-invoicing platform. This may work for top business partners,
about strategies for businesses to adopt e-invoicing on a but for the partners with less volume (longtail), this approach
large scale. What’s more, I spoke about the EU directive that usually leads to low conversion to e-invoicing. What’s more,
makes e-invoicing to (semi-) governments mandatory as of closed service providers may see the open model as a threat:
October 2018. In the past year, numerous driving forces pushed the platform becomes accessible for trading entities on other
e-invoicing forward. The most important one, however, was the platforms. However, in reality, the open model is an opportunity:
high interest from e-invoicing providers and ERP and accounting it adds reach and thus invoice volume potential to the platform
software to collaborate: platforms are increasingly sharing data that would otherwise be untapped.
(such as invoice data) with others through interoperability.
So what should participants do?

Yet, as we can see in the reports from Billentis, ‘true’ e-invoicing • Put ‘openness’ as the #1 criteria for your e-invoicing RFP:
adoption rates (counting only full XML invoices, no PDFs) are if your service provider does not follow the ‘open’ paradigm,
still below 15% in most European countries. The reason is the chances that you will successfully onboard your longtail
that companies have not fully embraced the concept of open suppliers in a supplier friendly way are very limited. If your
e-invoicing. Open e-invoicing requires a different view from service provider does not support the open model, put pressure
e-invoicing service providers but also their clients, the business on him to embrace it. After all, openness is not a threat, just an
partners. opportunity.
The move towards open e-invoicing has one major benefit for •C
hoose an e-invoice that only complies for 80% over a
trading partners: it eliminates the need for onboarding them on paper invoice: Be less rigid for your longtail suppliers with
your e-invoicing platform by enabling the exchange of invoices regards to invoice standards and data requirements in favour
using their own software. The result: increased reach, i.e. a larger of a single industry standard, the one agreed by accounting,
number of suppliers that can send e-invoices to you as a buyer, e-invoicing and ERP software vendors. This implies that you
hence better business case. Plus, extent is one of the key success do not impose your own data requirements. Instead you adjust
factors in grasping as many trading counterparties as possible. your system to efficiently process industry standard invoices.
A typical ‘open’ service provider has numerous interoperability •U

se PEPPOL discovery engine (a.k.a. SML) where possible,
agreements with other service providers. Some of them have and make e-invoicing the default: The PEPPOL protocol
over 100 agreements. The ultimate form of openness for an has a very sophisticated discovery service accessible via
e-invoicing service provider, ERP or accounting software provider a very simple DNS (1) mechanism: it allows you to discover if
is the adoption of PEPPOL: a protocol for the secure exchange your buyer requires an e-invoice. Use that discovery engine to
of invoices. It is the most far-reaching way of connecting with assess if your buyer requires an e-invoice, rather than depend
the largest base of your suppliers against minimal cost. You on an onboarding process with your buyer. ➔
can also describe PEPPOL as a standard API defined by the
industry of e-invoicing, ERP and accounting software vendors
for exchanging invoices.
•D
on’t overestimate VAT compliance: many companies
think VAT compliance requires parties to agree bilaterally on
e-invoicing, that conversion by parties is forbidden by VAT law,
that invoice originality is a major concern and that authenticity

Jaap Jan Nienhuis
and integrity are complex. The reality is that none of these are
Manager Simplerinvoicing true. Conversion of invoices is fact of live for years and no
Simplerinvoicing show-stopper at all. Invoice originality is in most European
countries easily solvable by service providers and ERP vendors
in the market, the PEPPOL regulatory framework solves
authenticity and integrity and is not a concern anymore for
About Jaap Jan Nienhuis: Jaap Jan Nienhuis participants.
is Manager Simplerinvoicing at SIDN. He is

responsible for managing the Simplerinvoicing What should service providers and ERP vendors do? Embrace
scheme authority. Jaap Jan has a special interest openness. Opening your platform does not harm your business
in the development of new services in 4-corner model. Instead, it allows easy integration of your platform with
models. In his former roles he has been involved many other e-invoicing, ERP and accounting software vendors
in a number of European collaborative e-invoicing with only one standard and protocol (PEPPOL). It eliminates the
initiatives, including the EBA E-invoicing Working need for costly bilateral agreements. And it also empowers your
Group. existing and new customers to use your services beyond your
platform.
About SIDN: Simplerinvoicing is a collaboration

between leading European e-invoicing and In a nutshell, the paradigm of open e-invoicing and further
accounting software providers, who all strive for collaboration between e-invoicing providers, ERP and accounting
mass adoption of e-invoicing by interoperability software vendors in the area of interoperability is essential to
and standardisation. Simplerinvoicing is a PEPPOL move Europe further in e-invoicing. The private sector should now
Authority. The Dutch government is connected via step in and leverage that growth.
Simplerinvoicing.
www.simplerinvocing.org (1) DNS

is the same mechanism that makes sure that www.
simplerinvoicing.org is translated into a technical IP address
of our web server. The same mechanism is used to resolve
for example a VAT number into the IP address to which an
e-invoice can be delivered.
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Once a year, The Paypers releases three large-scale industry overviews covering the latest trends, developments, disruptive
innovations and challenges that define the global online/mobile payments, e-invoicing, B2B payments, ecommerce and web
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For the latest edition, please check the Reports section

Regulation & Law
Evolution Payments Consulting
PSD2 XS2A – a Step Towards Open Banking
The world of retail banking and payments has become a very Access to accounts
engaging and dynamic environment. We have seen new The European Banking Authority (EBA), in cooperation with
products and services emerging over the past few years, aimed the European Central Bank (ECB), will publish Regulatory
at disrupting the status quo. For a market that has remained Technical Specifications (RTS) which will determine how TPPs,
relatively stable over the decades, we are on the verge of with a customer’s consent, can access account information in
witnessing great change. a secure manner to provide value-added services. How this will
be achieved has yet to be determined; the EBA will publish a
To facilitate this change, current payment regulation needs to consultation paper with the draft RTS in late 2016.
be amended to give financial service providers, new and old,
the opportunity to access systems and data, so that they can It is anticipated that the EBA will recommend the use of Application
participate in the market and offer innovative products and services. Programming Interfaces (APIs) to deliver the vision of Access to
Accounts. Yet, it is still unclear on what API standards they will
To address this, the European Commission published the Payment focus and how these will practically be managed.
Services Directive 2 (PSD2) in the Open Journal of the European
Union in January 2016, which will be transposed into Member The implications for regulated businesses
States national laws in January 2018. However, what is known is that this will have a profound impact
on incumbent banks, payment organisations and fintechs.
The aim of the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) is to harmonise The implementation of an API environment, whereby TTPs
the European payments landscape from a regulatory perspective, can access customer account data to provide new innovative
ensuring that all relevant organisations and activities are products and services will challenge existing business models.
adequately covered. This marks a shift towards an integrated
single market for safe electronic payments that strives to support There is going to be an influx of new market entrants. Some will
the growth of the European Union (EU) economy. Moreover, the be familiar names looking to extend the scope of their offerings in
aim is to ensure that consumers, merchants and companies the new API market economy. Others are going to be nimble, agile
enjoy choice and transparent secure payment services, so that fintechs that will deliver new compelling propositions and services
they will fully benefit from the internal market. by doing things differently, and looking to take market share from
incumbent organisations. When PSD2 becomes a reality there is
One of the principles of PSD2 is to foster an environment nothing to stop companies applying to be a regulated entity, as
whereby customers wanting to use value-added services from a Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP) and/or Application
Third Party Providers (TPPs) can do so safely, in the knowledge Initiation Service Provider (AISP), delivering new innovative
that their personal security credentials have not been shared with products and services directly to consumers.
a third party, and that the service provider can access only the
information for which the customer has given explicit consent. Are we seeing the conditions for a perfect storm? On the one
hand, we have banks that need to provide access to accounts
However, for these products and services to become mainstream through PSD2 Regulation. Some of them will become PISPs
and widely adopted by consumers, the TPPs require access to and/or AISPs to protect their existing business and revenues,
the customer’s online bank accounts to access data in real-time. and attract new customers. ➔
The mechanism by which this will be achieved is through Access
to Accounts, more commonly referred to as XS2A, which is set
out in PSD2.
➔ On the other, we have the challengers, a mix of established
organisations looking to grow their business through extension
and diversification of their core competencies, through fintechs
and start-ups looking to carve a niche into the market with

Brendan Jones
focused products and services.
Director
Evolution Payments Consulting The current status quo will be challenged. Established technology
giants (e.g. Google, Apple, Samsung, etc.), with their financial
muscle, large customer base across the majority of European
countries, significant brand reputation, and a strong understanding
About Brendan Jones: A senior management of what drives consumers, could potentially look to position
consultant with over 30 years’ experience in themselves as digital financial services providers.
the payments industry working with a variety

of organisations including technology & service Nimble, agile fintechs that don’t have the legacy IT environments
providers and financial organisations. Previously developed over many years, are in a prime position to deliver and
held senior roles focusing on business strategy, launch new services.
re g u l a t i o n , b u s i n e s s d e v e l o p m e n t , M & A ,
product development, programme & operations These organisations will look to realise a vision of a digital financial
management and business process reengineering. services provider that can offer the consumer one place where
they can consolidate all the financial services data into an easily
About Evolution Payments Consulting: Evolution understandable format, with tools to manage their money, and
Payments Consulting (EPC) provides payment without the legacy banking infrastructure and complexities
consulting services to the financial services industry associated with it.
and allied organisations. EPC provides payments

industry advice to companies looking to support A place where the customer can look, apply and be granted
the implementation of new regulation, develop/ services (i.e. secure/unsecure loans, payday advances, credit
launch new banking and payment propositions, card application, foreign exchange services, etc.) in a quick,
re-purpose existing products and services, to meet easy and frictionless manner from a variety of service providers.
the new and existing regulatory requirements. Automation and great UX being the name of the game.
uk.linkedin.com/in/jonesbrendan They do not have to provide the financial services directly to
the customer. They can act as the broker, the digital conduit,
for products and services, benefiting from the commercial
relationships struck with selected service providers.
The world of retail banking and payments is set for great change.
Share this story
ABFA
Late Payment – A Perspective
Research reports or surveys into late payment are what seem to What can be done? Well, depending on its resources and final
pass for ‘click-bait’ in the rarefied world of SME and commercial remit, the Small Business Commissioner could be an interesting
finance media. The Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA) proposition. Despite relatively limited formal powers, the
regularly carries out its own studies; our most recent review of Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) has made some effective
Companies House data finds that whilst in the manufacturing interventions in its bailiwick, naming and shaming one player
sector the biggest businesses are benefiting from a slight fall in in particular earlier in the year in a spectacular example of
payment times, those benefits are not being passed down the ‘behavioural economics’ in action. However, whether this media
supply chain to smaller manufacturing businesses, who still and political pile-on will prompt and sustain meaningful change
suffer an ever-increasing wait for payment. across a notoriously cut-throat sector remains to be seen.
Unfortunately, this is a longstanding issue. In 1997, the then For our part, the ABFA and others have been calling for the
(literally) new Labour government launched the Better Payment Small Business Commissioner to be established as a serious
Practice Campaign with the business groups to address these proposition with a wide remit to identify all instances and
very issues. Now the flag is flown by the Chartered Institute of circumstances where smaller businesses are treated unfairly. We
Credit Management with the Prompt Payment Code. argue that such a body will need teeth as well as a big mouth if it
is really going to level the playing field.
There has been legislative action since 2010 as well, with changes
to the legal framework at the EU level being implemented through What is actually meant by late payment gets to the heart of
the Late Payment of Commercial Debts Regulations (2013), and this and is why the ABFA argues that the conversation should
more significantly with last year’s Small Business, Enterprise be about poor payment practices more generally, not just late
and Employment Act bringing forward a wide-ranging package payment.
of measures to bolster the Code, including requirements around
mandatory reporting of payment times. Delaying payment to a supplier outside agreed payment terms
unless there are legitimate reasons for not doing so is late
These measures are slowly coming through in Regulations now, payment and is clearly unacceptable.
and additional legislation in the form of the Enterprise Act 2016
(which received Royal Assent during the writing of this article) will What about a larger customer business leveraging the market
enable the establishment of the Small Business Commissioner power it has over its smaller suppliers to impose extended payment
that will specifically focus on payment issues. terms? It is not ‘late’ payment but it is no less unacceptable and the
economic effect on supply chains is the same. What about using
But nine years on from the credit crunch and after several years of that same market position to impose retrospective discounts,
intense political focus on these issues, concerns about payment as the GCA found? What about the imposition of contractual
times and the knock-on implications for cash-flow and availability clauses that have the net effect of passing contractual risk from
of working capital still regularly top the lists of concerns for small the larger businesses that are best able to manage it down the
business owners. As indicated by our own research, the nagging supply chain to the smaller businesses that are not? ➔
concern is that whilst it might be getting better for the larger
businesses – who are arguably not the ones being imperilled in
the first place – the situation for smaller businesses is worsening
each and every year.
➔ Prominent amongst these are pay when paid clauses
(prevalent in the recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) world),
unlimited liquidated damages clauses, and ban on assignment
clauses. The latter contractual terms seek to prevent suppliers

Matthew Davies
from using their unpaid invoices to access invoice finance.
Director of Policy and Communications Admirably, the government is already taking specific legislative
Asset Based Finance Association action against these, with the aforementioned Small Business
Act enabling Regulations (expected shortly) to render such
clauses ineffective, belatedly bringing the UK into line with
most of the other major world economies. This will allow invoice
About Matthew Davies: Matthew is the Director of financiers to provide more funding to more businesses and will
Policy and Communications at ABFA. particularly benefit the smaller supplier businesses that suffer
most from these unnecessary clauses.
About ABFA: The ABFA represents the asset based

finance industry in the UK and the Republic of Ultimately, this should also be good for larger customer businesses
Ireland. Members include UK and Irish high street who will benefit from more stable and well-funded supply chains.
banks, specialist and challenger banks, specialist Of course, whilst invoice finance can help SMEs unlock funding,
businesses of international banks and corporates, it is not a silver bullet and is not a substitute for paying suppliers
and independent nonbank finance providers. promptly and treating them fairly. For that there needs to be a
cultural shift and that is where an empowered and resourced
www.abfa.org.uk Small Business Commissioner could have a real impact.
Share this story
EESPA
The Directive 2014/55/EU for E-invoicing and Procurement:
How Public Authorities Should Respond
Important developments are underway in the promotion of of such standard, the Commission has also requested CEN to
e-invoicing in public procurement. Under the Directive 2014/55/ provide a limited number of syntaxes which follow the European
EU, Member States must ensure that all public sector contracting standard on electronic invoicing, the appropriate syntax bindings
authorities are able to receive and process electronic invoices and guidelines on transmission interoperability. ‘Syntax’ means
from suppliers which follow a new European standard for an the machine-readable language or ‘dialect’ used to represent
e-invoice. This will happen over the next three or four years and the data elements contained in an electronic invoice and for
is a major opportunity for encouraging e-invoicing adoption. structuring messages based on the ‘semantic’ data model.
E-invoicing is supportive of public policy priorities such as The European standard is now under preparation in the CEN TC
deficit reduction, financial transparency and sustainability, and 434 and will be approved and published by the early part of 2017:
will specifically make a material contribution to public sector ‘The benefits of electronic invoicing are maximised when the
cost reduction and efficiency. Moreover, it will provide benefits generation, sending, transmission, reception and processing of
to private sector suppliers. Its ease of implementation can be an invoice can be fully automated. For this reason, only machine-
demonstrated with reference to many successful private sector readable invoices which can be processed automatically and
and public sector experiences, and to the extensive range of digitally by the recipient should be considered to be compliant
existing market solutions and service provider offerings. with the European standard on electronic invoicing. A mere
image file should not be considered to be an electronic invoice
The European Union and the Member States have in recent for the purpose of the Directive'.
years taken some steps to promote e-invoicing as a public policy
priority in support of the Single Market and Digital Agendas. How should public authorities respond?
For instance, the EU has funded important building blocks and The Directive does not itself create a mandatory rule for the
initiatives such as PEPPOL and the CEF programme, to support parties, contracting authorities and their suppliers, to move all
the adoption process. With this clear public policy support, their invoicing to electronic exclusively based on the European
European public administrations of all kinds are getting ready to standard, at least not at this stage. The Member States may
adopt e-invoicing on a broad scale. keep e-invoicing based on existing national standards and are
not forced to move away from traditional invoicing. Having said
The new standard this, the arrival of a European standard creates an opportunity
Directive 2014/55/EU provides a clear definition of an electronic for harmonisation and a concerted process of adoption across
invoice: an invoice that "has been issued, transmitted and national public sectors and the EU.
received in a structured electronic format which allows for its
automatic and electronic processing.” To make all this happen, policy-making, regulation and the
distribution of operational responsibilities are all critical factors
The Commission has requested CEN, a key European standardi for the success of e-invoicing. For the development of a suitable
sation organisation, to draft a European standard for the semantic policy framework, the Member States will typically wish to
data model of the core elements of an electronic invoice. establish a national strategy with detailed action plans to ensure
CEN has created a CEN Technical Committee – CEN TC434 – to implementation, to decide on the degree of compulsion, the
carry out the work. The ‘semantic data model’ will be a structured various ways and standards for adoption, and to agree on a
and logically interrelated set of terms and their meanings centralised or decentralised infrastructure. ➔
relevant to the business functions of an invoice. To ease the use
European E-invoicing Service Providers Association
Member
➔ Public administrations may consider the use of ‘shared
services’, the use of third-party e-procurement and e-invoicing
solutions and services, and the degree of integration between
pre-award and post-award processes. Contracting authorities

Charles Bryant
will wish to ensure that the necessary technical infrastructure
Secretary General is deployed to receive invoices conform ing to the European
EESPA standard in the required formats.
Once received, the Directive does not require the contracting
authority to do more than ‘process’ such invoices. This can be
About Charles Bryant: Charles Bryant is Secretary done in a fully automated way, particularly if the contracting
General of EESPA and also active in the Global authority is already processing e-invoices, in a semi-automated
Supply Chain Finance Forum. way, or the invoices can be simply converted to a human
readable form (using available technology) and processed
About EESPA: The European E-invoicing Service manually. The authority can leave it to suppliers to choose
Providers Association acts as a trade association whether to adopt the standard and render invoices in the format
at European level for a large and dynamic and neither encourage nor discourage its use. This describes a
community of e-invoicing service providers, drawn minimalist strategy.
from organisations that provide network, business

outsourcing, financial, technology and EDI services. It is recognised that the minimum requirements are a starting
EESPA is an International Not-for-Profit Association point and likely to evolve as the e-invoicing journey progresses.
organised under Belgian law. Formed in 2011 The opportunity presented by the new European standard
it has over 60 full and associate members and calls for more ambitious and various e-invoicing adoption
is involved with a range of important initiatives programmes. For this, contracting authorities would think about
in interoperability, the public policy debate, and moving towards completely automated processing of e-invoices
promoting adoption. after they are received, perhaps only based on the new
standard. Such an approach describes a maximalist strategy –
www.eespa.eu a recommended goal by many commentators.
This will be a challenging and exciting period for the public sector
and their service and solution providers. It is a real opportunity to
spread the e-invoicing habit and save money for buyers and their
suppliers, whilst promoting supply chain efficiency.
[The above material is drawn from a Guidance Paper prepared
for the European Multi-Stakeholder Forum on e-Invoicing and
Share this story prepared by the writer in conjunction with an Activity Group of
the Forum.]
The International Association for Alternative Finance
Regulation and Growth in Alternative Finance – A Contradiction in the Making
Growth of alternative finance The contradiction

Since 1999, and the early days of the internet, we have seen The contradiction of platforms and funding providers is that
business models such as the travel sector, been transformed. they want to be regulated. This seems totally contra to a newly
High street shops, with glossy travel catalogues, have given way developing sector where agility is everything.
to web stores, and ultimately travel comparison websites. These
new models, have enhanced the customer journey and delivered In addition, regulators have been relatively disinterested in
rates of return to operators who have embraced these new regulating alternative finance, as it represents such a tiny
ways of working. Not least with these models is the low cost of proportion of finance. Regulators are busy elsewhere!
operation, low point of entry and typically higher yield per traveler,
particularly when “add on” sales such as insurance are achieved. So what is the danger? Well the danger is that alternative
finance providers may get regulated but in a way that they
From a slower start, alternative finance, has embraced similar had not expected. This could be the result of regulators not
models. Against a moribund collection of banks and traditional understanding the dynamics of this new market and may purely
finance providers, the transition is starting to be made from by accident kill the sector.
those high street shops which represent the traditional banks, to
online web stores. The resultant growth of alternative finance has So what are the alternatives? There are a number of different
surprised even its staunchest critics. segments to the alternative finance market, consumer related
activity for sure touching on elements of regulatory space.
Standards and regulation However, there are common threads which need standards to
Against this background of growth, the alternative finance sector, be developed which could act as a guide for future but informed
has been slow to recognise the power of regulation as a way regulation.
to slow or indeed kill growth. A good historical comparison is
the battle of the airlines in the 1980’s where heavyweight and These guidelines need to cover some real basics reflecting a new
dominant airlines very nearly killed the growth of fast moving, industry. For instance, how much time is spent on staff vetting,
low cost airlines, through regulation. crucial where sales staff are often responsible for authenticating
transactions? And what happens with IT security both for
Differently to the street fighters of the Branson’s, alternative the platforms themselves and the feeds to and from funding
finance providers have approached the threat from regulation providers? Again, how long is it before a platform is hacked?
almost naively. The predominant view is that each player will If it can happen to the closed SWIFT network, new technology
develop its own approach to standards and regulation, and that platforms could be even more vulnerable. Resilience and
all will be well. However, there is a massive under-estimation security is the responsibility of each platform at the moment, but
of the traditional banks, who spend tens of millions, engaging a failure of the weakest link, could have a devastating impact on
with regulators and influencers, in order to maintain the status the sector. ➔
quo. The experience of challenger banks who were unable to
get exemptions from the UK bank tax is probably an indicator of
where such influence has acted against new entrants.
➔ The International Association of Alternative Finance (IAAF.
org.uk) has been taking a lead through 2015, in encouraging
platforms to work together to develop standards. The concept
is to not make anything mandatory at this stage but to build

Tony Duggan
guidelines that members can work towards. This has been
Founder and Director achieved in parallel with key stakeholders and regulators.
IAAF The latter have been especially supportive as they do not want to
kill an embryonic alternative finance sector.
However, the fate of the sector very much rests in the decisions
About Tony Duggan: Tony was previously Supply of platforms and funding providers. Do they lose the agility
Chain Development Director at Wickes, where of alternative finance, or do they work together on building
he developed Europe’s largest B2B platform. guidelines and standards which could become the kind of
As Consulting Services Director at Bolero, a division regulation that will support growth? The IAAF is launching the
of the SWIFT banking network, he worked with some first Guidelines for the growth of alternative finance on June 16.
of the world’s largest banks on global SCF initiatives. The guidelines cover key areas required to support the growth
This unique experience along with his real experience of the sector and will hopefully provide the pathway that the
in start-ups and SMEs has provided him with real industry needs.
insights into the challenges of SCF and has been

fundamental in the design of the Crossflow solution.
About IAAF: Founded in London in 2014, the

International Association for Alternative Finance
(IAAF) is an industry body committed to the
promotion and development of the Alternative
Business Finance sector. IAAF sets out its drive for
the Business Alternative Finance to be applied with
excellence globally, thereby creating opportunities
for members, and supporting the economy
development as a whole. The Association’s four key
focus areas are: regulation, reputation, operational
environment and future growth.
www.iaafin.org
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Company profiles
Company CloudTrade View company profile in online database
CloudTrade is one of the fastest growing e-invoice networks and built firmly on the premise
that e-invoicing should be free for suppliers, easy-to-use and non-disruptive – only then will
suppliers move away from paper. These principles underpin the CloudTrade service which
ensures high supplier adoption is guaranteed.
Website www.cloudtradenetwork.com
Service provider type E-invoicing service provider
Head office location UK
In which market do you provide North America, Europe, Middle East/Africa, Asia/Pacific
your services?
Contact details Mr Richard Manson, Commercial Director; richard.manson@cloud-trade.com,
+44 (0)7956 441898, 2-6 Boundary Row, London, SE1 8HP
Active since 2010
Keywords electronic invoicing, e-invoicing, PDF invoicing, P2P, purchase to pay, e-order, O2C,
order to cash
Markets
Which side in the supply chain is Both buyers and suppliers
your primary target group?
B2B, B2C and/or B2G B2B, B2G
(Government)?
Target customer Corporates
Are you specialized in a certain Generic (no specific industry)
industry?
Proposition
Which processes in the supply Ordering, supply chain, invoicing
chain do you facilitate?
Support interoperability with other Yes – we currently interoperate with a number of service providers. Furthermore, CloudTrade
service providers? is a registered Access Point on the PEPPOL network.
Which pricing model do you Subscription and transaction-based
mainly use?
Solution description CloudTrade removes the barriers to supplier adoption. Our patented solution provides a non-
disruptive way for a supplier to send electronic invoices – without having to change systems
or infrastructure. The net result is that we will remove more paper from an organisation, in a
shorter time frame, than any other e-invoicing approach.
Services: which of the following services do you offer?
Purchase Order Flip No
Matching of related transactions Yes – match invoices to POs, contracts, service entry sheets, or goods receipt. Business
rules can be amended per customer.
Distribution of e-invoices Yes
Invoice presentment portal No – a portal is available for the receiving organisation, but not for the sending organisation.
Processing updates are provided to the supplier via e-mail.
Legal compliance tools Yes
TAX/VAT compliancy Yes
e-Signature service Yes
Finance & (reversed) factoring Yes – offered through a CloudTrade partner
services
(Dynamic) discounting Yes – offered through a CloudTrade partner
e-Archiving Yes
Scanning of paper invoices Yes
73 B2B FINTECH: PAYMENTS, SUPPLY CHAIN FINANCE & E-INVOICING GUIDE 2016 | COMPANY PROFILES
Total invoice management, Yes
100% paper to electronic
Printing No
Workflow functionality Yes
Direct integration with payments No
Accounts Payable management Yes
Accounts Receivable No
management
Integration with ERP/accounting Yes
software
Which standards do you support? All current major e-invoicing, e-billing and payment standards.
Conversion from or into various Yes
XML formats (mapping)
Content validation of incoming Yes – each document is validated against a set of document and customer specific
invoice data validations.
Facilitate customer onboarding Yes – due to the ease by which suppliers are able to adopt CloudTrade’s e-invoicing service,
typically more than 90% of suppliers that we are asked to on-board will come on board.
Other services The core technology underpinning CloudTrade’s service is document agnostic. We can
(and do) provide e-document services across numerous sectors and document flows.
Company Comarch View company profile in online database
Comarch is a global provider of IT solutions. Comarch has more than 20 years of industry
experience, thousands successfully completed projects in over 40 countries, worldwide
references, own R&D department made up of high-end IT engineers, high ranking IT analyst
ratings: Gartner, IDC, Truffle 100, custom data centers in Poland and Germany.
Website www.comarch.com; www.edi.comarch.com
Service provider type Software vendor, e-invoicing provider
Head office location Poland
In which market do you provide Global
your services?
Contact details Mr. Bartlomiej Wojtowicz, Product Manager, bartlomiej.wojtowicz@comarch.com,
+48 12 684 8735
Active since 1993
Keywords supplier onboarding, supplier portal, e-invoicing, purchase-to-pay, archiving, electronic
invoices, master data management, supply chain financing
Markets
B2B, B2C and/or B2G B2B
(Government)?
Target customer Micro SMEs, SMEs, corporates
Are you specialised in a certain Broad scope of industries including FMCG, retail, DIY, automotive, logistics, oil&gas,
industry? pharma, electronics
Proposition
Which processes in the supply Supplier onboarding, master data management, ordering, supply chain, logistics,
chain do you facilitate? e-invoicing, supply chain financing
Support interoperability with other Yes
service providers?
Which pricing model do you Licensed SaaS, transaction-based
mainly use?
Solution description Comarch EDI provides the companies with smart solution, enabling exchange of validated
and tax compliant invoices in the format adjusted to back office systems. It provides
electronic archive and electronic signature as well as Service Desk in 12 languages
(including English, German, French, Turkish, Russian) to guarantee onboarding of each
partner.
Purchase Order Flip Yes
Matching of related transactions Yes
Invoice presentment portal Yes
Finance & (reversed) factoring Yes
services
(Dynamic) discounting No
e-Archiving Yes
Scanning of paper invoices Yes, via partners
Printing Yes, via partners
Workflow functionality No
Accounts Payable management No
Accounts Receivable No
management
software
Which standards do you support? Support for various formats
Content validation of incoming Yes
invoice data
Facilitate customer onboarding Yes
Other services Suppliers onboarding
Company ebpSource Limited View company profile in online database
The most experienced team in the e-billing and payment industry, ebpSource delivers
software solutions, consultancy and support to billers, banks, payment processors and
outsourcers. ebpSource brings unparalleled knowledge and a highly successful track-
record designing, developing, deploying, integrating and supporting many of the largest and
highest-adoption services of this kind worldwide.
Website www.ebpsource.com
Service provider type Software vendor and reseller – e-billing, e-invoicing, e-signing, mobile, payment, supply
chain finance and authentication specialists. Large-scale projects at a national and
international level. Ongoing support and specialist consultancy.
Head office location United Kingdom
In which market do you provide Globally
your services?
Contact details Steve Wright, Commercial Director, swright@ebpsource.com, +44 1753 567896
Active since 2006
Keywords ebpsource, e-billing, payment, software, solution, e-invoicing, e-signing, authentication
Markets
Which side in the supply chain is Both suppliers and buyers
B2B, B2C and/or B2G B2B, B2C, B2G
(Government)?
Target customer Corporates
Are you specialized in a certain Cross-industry with specific specialisations in national e-bill consolidation, bank-based
industry? e-invoicing and payment, telecoms and utility e-billing, e-signing and smart authentication
Proposition
Which processes in the supply Authentication, e-invoicing, payments, online banking integration, supply chain finance,
chain do you facilitate? ordering, e-signing
Support interoperability with other ebpSource has a wealth of experience in connecting e-billing and payment infrastructures,
service providers? at a national and regional level.
Which pricing model do you License, subscription, transaction-based
mainly use?
Solution description ebpSource provides a range of software, consultancy and support services to help clients
achieve new levels of operational efficiency, customer service and cost reduction. The team
works closely with clients to design, develop, deploy, integrate and support end customer
applications. Our key focus is long-term strategic partnerships with customers.
services
(Dynamic) discounting Yes
e-Archiving Yes
Scanning of paper invoices No
Printing No
Direct integration with payments Yes
Accounts Receivable Yes
management
software
Which standards do you support? All current major e-invoicing, e-billing and payment standards
invoice data
Other services Technology development, consultancy and application support
Company Order2Cash View company profile in online database
Order2Cash is a pioneering provider of global order to cash optimisation services. Cited

by Gartner as a pure-play Order2Cash solution provider, our services empower the work
of Fortune 500 companies and leading enterprises around the world; helping them to
reduce costs and optimise spending on resources and technology. Discover more at
www.order2cash.com. Order2Cash is an Anachron company www.anachron.com.
Website www.order2cash.com
Service provider type Order2Cash provides flawless integration of the entire accounts receivable process across
the enterprise and around the globe. End-to-end global SaaS solutions, including credit
checks, secure online contract signing, multi-channel e-invoicing, online payments, credit
management and document archiving.
Head office location EMEA Head office: Amsterdam, the Netherlands, US; Head office: NY, USA
your services?
Contact details Phone EMEA: +31 20 531 39 00, USA: +1 347 478 5398; Email: info@order2cash.com;
Twitter: @O2CAnachron; LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/order2cash
Active since 2000
Keywords order to cash, e-invoicing, credit management, payments, contracting, interoperability
Markets
Which side in the supply chain is Both suppliers and buyers
B2B, B2C and/or B2G B2B, B2C, B2G
(Government)?
Target customer Mid-large corporates and multinationals
Are you specialized in a certain Our solutions are focused on AR automation and accelerating the order to cash process.
industry? As such, they are suitable for use in all industries.
Proposition
Which processes in the supply Credit checks, online document signing e-invoicing, payments, cash application, credit
chain do you facilitate? management, collections
Support interoperability with other Yes, we have interoperability agreements with an extensive range of B2B/B2G e-invoicing
service providers? networks and are a member of the European E-Invoicing Service Providers Association
(EESPA).
Which pricing model do you Transaction-based pricing

mainly use?
Solution description Order2Cash.com offers a suite of SaaS solutions that combine to create a flawless
integration of the entire accounts receivable process, across the enterprise and around
the globe. Its modules support credit checks, contracting, e-invoicing, payments and
credit management. Select components and tailor a solution to suit your business needs.

Distribution of e-invoices Yes. Our solutions integrate with 700+ ERP systems for easy document exchange.
In addition we are connected with over 25 P2P platforms.
Legal compliance tools We work closely together with partners such as PwC and EY to ensure international Tax/VAT
compliancy.
TAX/VAT compliancy Global coverage
e-Signature service Every document is signed with an e-signature (QES or AES) to guarantee integrity and
authenticity and to meet VAT requirements. This can be completed with a timestamp.
Finance & (reversed) factoring Offered through partner network of financial institutions
services
e-Archiving Every document is securely archived complete legal storage period.
Scanning of paper invoices Yes, in cooperation with our network of output partners.
Printing Yes, in cooperation with our network of global output partners.
Direct integration with payments Yes
Accounts Payable management Available in cooperation with our network of output patners.
management
Integration with ERP/accounting Yes. We have established connections with over 700 ERP systems.
software
Which standards do you support? UN/CEFACT CII, ISO20022 Financial Invoice, UBL 2.0 and others, if required.
Conversion from or into various Yes. Any structured data can be converted to XML format.
Content validation of incoming Yes. All data is validated and reported.
invoice data
Facilitate customer onboarding Yes. Full support, guidelines and advice is offered to all clients on customer activation.
Other services Related to invoicing: reporting, query management, customer grouping, authorisation tools,
consolidated billing. Alongside invoicing services, your Order2Cash solution can expand to
include online payment functionalities, robust credit management and cash application tools
as well as a secure online contract and document signing service. Further details on the full
platform can be found on our website.
Connecting everyone everywhere
Flawless integration of the entire

AR process, across the enterprise
and around the globe
www.order2cash.com
Fix Your Leaky Receivables! Scan the QR code to claim your FREE Diagnostic
Spreadsheet and measure the hidden costs in your accounts receivables processes.
Company Saphety Level – Trusted Services S.A. View company profile in online database
Saphety is a leading company in global network solutions for electronic documents

exchange, document presentment, data synchronisation and public procurement.
Saphety has 4.700 companies and over 129.000 users throughout more than 30 countries.
Website http://www.saphety.com/
Service provider type E-invoicing service provider, bank, software vendor, reseller or specialist
Head office location Portugal (headquarters in Lisbon and operational offices in Bogotá, Colombia and
São Paulo, Brazil)
In which market do you provide Global
your services?
Contact details info@saphety.com, +351 210 114 640
Active since 2000
Keywords electronic documents exchange, e-invoice, invoice software, paperless transactions, EDI,
document presentment, public procurement, data synchronisation
Markets
Which side in the supply chain is Buyers, suppliers, both
B2B, B2C and/or B2G B2B, B2G
(Government)?
Target customer Micro SMEs, SMEs, corporates and government
Are you specialised in a certain Automotive, government, healthcare, retail, utilities, telecom, tourism, oil & energy, finance
industry? (bank and insurance), mass businesses and others
Proposition
Which processes in the supply Contracting, ordering, supply chain, invoicing, payments
chain do you facilitate?
Support interoperability with other Yes
service providers?
Which pricing model do you Subscription, transaction-based
mainly use?
Solution description SaphetyDoc enables you to exchange business documentation electronically, including
purchase orders, delivery notes and invoices, in a simple way, at a low cost. While
complying with all legal requirements related to e-invoicing, SaphetyDoc allows to
completely eliminate the use of paper in the invoicing process, from issuance to sending
and approval.
TAX/VAT compliancy AU, AT, BE, BG, CA, CY, CZ, DK, EE, FI, FR, DE, GR, HK, HU, IS, IE, IM, IL, IT, LV, LI, LT, LU,
MT, MX, MA, NL, NZ, NO, PL, PT, RO, SG, SK, SI, ZA, ES, SE, CH, GB, US
e-Signature service Yes, we provide e-Signature Service. We can also use external e-Signature service if
requested by client.
services
e-Archiving Yes
Scanning of paper invoices Yes
Printing Yes
management
software
Which standards do you support? UBL 2.0, EDIFACT, Flat files, TXT, XML, Idoc, etc
invoice data
Other services IPC Invoice Payment Control, Doc+. Market reports in progress.
Please, stop wasting paper.
Best Regards,
Mother Earth
Saphety offers the best paperless solutions to help your business

be more environmentally friendly while improving your efficiency
and workflow process.
Learn more at saphety.com

Company Tungsten Corporation Ltd View company profile in online database
Tungsten Corporation accelerates global trade by enabling customers to streamline invoice

processing, improve cash-flow management and make better buying decisions. Tungsten
Network helps buying organisations reduce their invoice-processing costs by 60% and
profit by applying real-time spend analytics to their line-level invoice data. Suppliers gain
efficiencies, greater payment-status visibility and optional early payment.
Website www.tungsten-network.com
Service provider type Global e-invoicing network, invoice finance and spend analytics
Head office location London, UK
your services?
Contact details Mr Ruud van Hilten, SVP Global Buyer Sales, ruud.vanhilten@tungsten-network.com,
+44 87 0165 7420
Active since 2000
Keywords electronic invoicing, accounts payable, procurement, supplier network, purchase to pay,
invoice finance, spend analytics, AP workflow
Markets
B2B, B2C and/or B2G B2B & B2G
(Government)?
Target customer Micro SMEs, SMEs, corporates, multinationals
Are you specialized in a certain Generic (no specific industry). E-invoicing is a horizontal process.
industry?
Proposition
Which processes in the supply Invoicing, purchase to pay, working capital financing, purchasing orders, supplier self-
chain do you facilitate? service, real-time spend analytics
Support interoperability with other Yes. We interoperate with compliant service providers where there is customer demand,
service providers? qualifying invoice volume and compliance is maintained.
Which pricing model do you Balanced-costs are shared by buyers and suppliers. Low volume suppliers receive 52
mainly use? free invoices annually and high volume suppliers receive 520 free invoices annually. After
these free invoice transactions have been used, a flat fee structure is applied per invoice
transaction.
Solution description The world’s largest organisations connect with thousands of suppliers around the globe
through Tungsten Network. We enable companies to send and receive error-free, tax-
compliant invoices around the globe without the need to install any hardware or software.
We provide a unique supplier engagement and onboarding programme to ensure that
suppliers participate and transact with their buyers.
Purchase Order Flip Yes. We can take POs from all sources in a buyer’s structure and present these to the supply
chain. Suppliers can convert POs directly into invoices on our portal.
Matching of related transactions Yes. We match invoices with POs, online-level if required.
Distribution of e-invoices Yes. We enable companies to send and receive compliant B2B invoices.
Invoice presentment portal Yes. Suppliers can use our portal to manually enter their invoice data, convert a PO, check
the status of their invoices and select early payment.
Legal compliance tools Yes. Our rules engine enables companies to receive compliant invoices in all the jurisdictions
we are compliant in.
TAX/VAT compliancy Yes. We work with local tax authorities to enable companies to send and receive compliant
invoices. We are currently compliant in 47 countries with a pipeline of new countries in
progress.
e-Signature service Yes. All compliant invoices are digitally signed where required by local regulations.
We provide at-source signature verification.
Finance & (reversed) factoring Yes. Invoice financing is a service we offer through Tungsten Network Finance. This can be
services funded by Tungsten’s own financing partners, the buyer, or the buyer’s banking partners.
(Dynamic) discounting Yes. We offer this service on a case-by-case basis via Tungsten Network.
e-Archiving Yes. We provide legally compliant archiving.
Scanning of paper invoices Yes. As a component of a structured e-invoicing programme.
Total invoice management, Yes. As a component of a structured e-invoicing programme.
Printing Yes. We can arrange this service through a partner.
Workflow functionality Yes. We can arrange this service through a partner.
Direct integration with payments Yes. Tungsten Bank has access to all relevant payment systems.
Accounts Payable management No. We partner with the world’s largest BPO providers.
Accounts Receivable No. We partner with the world’s largest BPO providers.
management
Integration with ERP/accounting Yes. We fully integrate with any ERP financial software.
software
Which standards do you support? Yes. We support all structured file formats and most data standards.
Conversion from or into various Yes. We support all structured file formats and most data standards.
Content validation of incoming Yes. We use extensive and flexible rule-sets to ensure compliance with our buyers’ business
invoice data processes.
Facilitate customer onboarding Yes. We provide a unique supplier engagement and onboarding programme and can
contractually guarantee paper conversion rates in best practice projects.
Other services Purchase order services, invoice status service, spend analytics, supply chain finance
Glossary
3-Corner Model A
3-Corner Model is an exchange model where senders and Access to finance
receivers of invoices are connected to a single service provider for Access to finance is the ability of individuals or enterprises to
the dispatch and receipt of messages. obtain financial services, including credit, deposit, payment,
insurance and other risk management services.
Another definition: 3-Corner Model is an invoicing process set-up
whereby trading partners have separate contractual relationships Accounts payable

with the same service provider. When both senders and receivers Accounts payable refers to the money a business owes to others;
of invoices are connected to a single hub for the dispatch and current liabilities incurred in the normal course of business as an
receipt of invoices, it is referred to as a 3-Corner model. This central organisation purchases goods or services with the understanding
hub consolidates the invoices of several receivers and many that payment is due at a later date. Accounts payable is also
senders in the case of accounts payable, and several senders and the department within an organisation responsible for paying
many receivers in the case of accounts receivable processing. invoices on behalf of the organisation.
Consolidators and trade platforms are usually 3-Corner Models in
which both senders and receivers are connected to the service. Accounts payable automation
The 3-Corner Model in principle can only offer reach to the Accounts payable automation represents the (semi-) automated
parties that are connected to the central hub. This means that management of accounts payable administration by automated
either invoice senders or invoice receivers often have to connect processing of invoices. Accounts payable automation requires
to multiple hubs in order to increase their reach. To solve limited integration of the invoicing process with accounting software.
reach in 3-Corner Models, roaming has been introduced.

Accounts receivable
4-Corner Model Accounts receivable refers to money which is owed to a company
4-Corner Model is an exchange model where senders and by customer for products and services provided on credit. This
receivers of invoice messages are supported by their own service is often treated as a current asset on a balance sheet. A specific
provider. sale is generally only treated as an account receivable after the
customer is sent an invoice.
Another definition: 4-Corner Model is an invoicing process
set-up whereby each trading partner has contracted with one Advanced electronic signature (AES)
or several separate service providers, whereby the service Advanced electronic signature (AES) means an electronic
providers ensure the correct interchange of invoices between the signature which meets the following requirements: a) it is
trading partners. The concept of the 4-Corner model originated uniquely linked to the signatory; b) it is capable of identifying
in the banking sector. When senders and receivers of invoices the signatory; c) it is created using means that the signatory van
are supported by their own consolidator service provider (for the maintain under its sole control; and d) it is linked to the data to
sender) and aggregator service provider (for the receiver), it is which it relates in such a manner that any subsequent change of
referred to as a 4-Corner Model. A network usually based on open the date is detectable.
standards provides connectivity and the facilities for the secure
trusted exchange of invoices and or other business documents.
In the 4-Corner Models, the consolidator and aggregator roles are
often two different service providers.
89 B2B FINTECH: PAYMENTS, SUPPLY CHAIN FINANCE & E-INVOICING GUIDE 2016 | GLOSSARY
Alternative finance B
Alternative financial services (AFS) is a term often used to Basel III
describe the array of financial services offered by providers Basel III is a comprehensive set of reform measures designed to
that operate outside of federally insured banks and thrifts improve the regulation, supervision and risk management within
(hereafter referred to as ‘banks’). Check-cashing outlets, money the banking sector. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision
transmitters, car title lenders, payday loan stores, pawnshops published the first version of Basel III in late 2009, giving banks
and rent-to-own stores are all considered AFS providers. approximately three years to satisfy all requirements. Largely
However, many of the products and services they provide in response to the credit crisis, banks are required to maintain
are not ‘alternative’; rather, they are the same as or similar to proper leverage ratios and meet certain capital requirements.
those offered by banks. AFS also sometimes refers to financial
products delivered outside brick-and-mortar bank branches or Bank payment obligation (BPO)
storefronts through alternative channels, such as the internet, Bank payment obligation (BPO) is a class of settlement solution
financial services kiosks and mobile phones. in international supply chain finance. Bank payment obligation is
an irrevocable undertaking given by an obligator bank (typically
Online platform-based alternative financing activities include buyer’s bank) to a recipient bank (usually seller's bank) to pay
donation-, reward- and equity-based crowdfunding, peer-to- a specified amount on an agreed date under the condition
peer consumer and business lending, invoice trading, debt- of successful electronic matching of data according to an
based securities and others. industry-wide set of rules adopted by International Chamber of
Commerce (ICC) Banking Commission.
Asset based lending (ABL)

Asset based lending (ABL) is a specialised form of secured Bill of lading
lending whereby a company uses its current assets (accounts A bill of lading (sometimes abbreviated as B/L or BoL) is a
receivable and inventory) as collateral for a loan. The loan is legal document between the shipper of a particular good and
structured so that the amount of credit is limited in relation to the the carrier detailing the type, quantity and destination of the
value of the collateral. The product is differentiated from other good being carried. The bill of lading also serves as a receipt
types of lending secured by accounts receivable and inventory by of shipment when the good is delivered to the predetermined
the lender's use of controls over the borrower’s cash receipts and destination. This document must accompany the shipped goods,
disbursements and the quality of collateral rather than ownership no matter the form of transportation, and must be signed by an
of the receivables as in factoring. authorised representative from the carrier, shipper and receiver.
Asset based loan Blockchain

Asset based loan is a business loan in which the borrower pledges Blockchain is a distributed ledger, comprised of digitally recorded
as loan collateral any assets used in the conduct of his or her data in packages called blocks. These digitally recorded blocks of
business. Funds are used for business-related expenses. All data are stored in a linear chain. Each block in the chain contains
asset-based loans are secured. cryptographically hashed data (such as Bitcoin transactions).
The blocks of hashed data draw upon the previous-block in the
Automated clearing house (ACH) chain.
Automated clearing house (ACH) is an electronic payments
system (outside the card networks) for clearing and settling Business interoperability interfaces (BII)
transactions. Funds are electronically exchanged directly to/ Business interoperability interfaces on public procurement
from participants’ accounts. Frequently used by end-user in Europe (BII) is CEN Workshop providing a basic framework
organisations as the payment method by which to pay their for technical interoperability in pan-European electronic
issuer. transactions, expressed as a set of technical specifications that
in particular are compatible with UN/CEFACT.
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) C
Business process outsourcing (BPO) is the contracting of a Card scheme
specific business task, such as payroll, to a third-party service Card schemes such as Visa or MasterCard promote the use of
provider. Usually, BPO is implemented as a cost-saving measure various card types which carry their logos. Banks and financial
for tasks that a company requires but does not depend upon to institutions have to apply for membership of the appropriate card
maintain their position in the marketplace. scheme before they can issue cards or acquire transactions.
Business-to-business (B2B) Cash flow

Business-to-business is a type of commerce transaction Cash flow represents the pattern of company income and
that exists between businesses, such as those involving a expenditures and resulting availability of cash.
manufacturer and wholesaler, or a wholesaler and a retailer.
Business to business refers to business that is conducted CENBII

between companies, rather than between a company and CENBII is an UBL-based XML format used for the OpenPEPPOL
individual consumers. This is in contrast to business to consumer network, it currently exists in a version 1 and version 2. CENBII
(B2C) and business to government (B2G). A typical supply is meant to be used for international transfers on OpenPEPPOL,
chain involves multiple business to business transactions, as whereas domestic transfers will generally use a localised version
companies purchase components and other raw materials of CENBII (e.g. EHF, SimpleInvoice).
for use in its manufacturing processes. The finished product
can then be sold to individuals via business to consumer CFDI

transactions. Comprobante Fiscal Digital a través de Internet (CFDI), or Digital
Tax Receipt through Internet, refers to the current mandated
Business-to-business payments form of e-invoicing in Mexico. All e-invoices in Mexico are issued
Business-to-business payments represent the payments that as CFDI as of January 1, 2014.
are made between businesses for various goods, services and
expenses. Clearing
Clearing is the process of exchanging financial transaction
Business-to-consumer (B2C) details between an acquirer and an issuer to facilitate posting
Businesses or transactions conducted directly between a of a card-holder’s account and reconciliation of a customer’s
company and consumers who are the end-users of its products settlement position.
or services. Business-to-consumer as a business model differs
significantly from the business-to-business model, which refers Clearing house automated payment system
to commerce between two or more businesses. (CHAPS)
The company has responsibility for the operation of an electronic
Business networks transfer system for sending real-time gross settlement same-day
Many businesses use networking as a key factor in their payments for CHAPS Sterling and CHAPS Euro.
marketing plan. It helps to develop a strong feeling of trust
between those involved and play a big part in raising the profile Commercial card
and takings of a company. Suppliers and businesses can be A commercial card is the generic, umbrella term for a variety
seen as networked businesses, and will tend to source the of card types used for business-to-business (B2B) payments.
business and their suppliers through their existing relationships Some of the cards listed as commercial are: purchase cards,
and those of the companies they work closely with. Networked entertainment cards, corporate cards, travel cards and business
businesses tend to be open, random and supportive, whereas cards.
those relying on hierarchical, traditional managed approaches
are closed, selective and controlling.
Commercial finance Days sales outstanding (DSO)
Commercial finance is a generic term for a range of asset based Days sales outstanding (DSO/ days receivables) is a calculation
finance services which include factoring, invoice discounting, used by a company to estimate their average collection period. It
international factoring, reverse factoring and asset based lending is a financial ratio that illustrates how well a company’s accounts
facilities. There are many variations on each of these product receivables are being managed.
sets (and the precise nomenclature varies from market to
market) but all exist to provide working capital funding solutions Debtor (buyer)
to businesses. A debtor or buyer constitutes a business that has been supplied
with goods or services by the client and is obliged to make
Conversion payment for them. It is also referred to as the purchaser of
Conversion represents the act of automatically converting the goods or services supplied by a client whose debts have been
format of an electronic invoice from the format of the sender assigned/ sold to a factor.
to the format of the recipient (format conversion), or converting
the encoding of content (e.g. different code list or units of Debtor finance
measure), using agreed mapping processes that do not alter the Debtor finance, also called cash flow finance, is an umbrella
information represented by the document (content conversion). term used to describe a process to fund a business using its
accounts receivable ledger as collateral. Generally, companies
Corporate card that have low working capital reserves can get into cash flow
Corporate card is a type of commercial card used by problems because invoices are paid on net 30 terms. Debtor
organisations to pay for business travel and entertainment (T&E) finance solutions fund slow paying invoices, which improves the
expenses. It is also referred to as a travel card. The liability for cash flow of the company. This puts it in a better position to pay
abuse of the card typically rests with the company and not with operating expenses. Types of debtor financing solutions include
the employee. invoice discounting, factoring, cash flow finance, asset finance,
invoice finance and working capital finance.
Corporate liability
The end-user organisation is liable for the commercial card Debt financing
charges; this is the case for purchasing card programs and, Debt financing refers to when a firm raises money for working
sometimes, corporate card programs. capital or capital expenditures by selling bonds, bills or notes
to individual and/or institutional investors. In return for lending
Covenant the money, the individuals or institutions become creditors and
The covenant represents a promise in an indenture or any other receive a promise that the principal and interest on the debt will
formal debt agreement, that certain activities will or will not be be repaid.
carried out. Covenants in finance most often relate to terms in
a financial contracting, such as loan documentation stating Directive of the European Commission
the limits at which the borrower can further lend or other such The Directive of the European Commission is a legal act of the
stipulations. Covenants are put in place by lenders to protect European Union regarding defining a new legal framework for
themselves from borrowers defaulting on their obligations due to payments.
financial actions detrimental to themselves or the business.
Distributed ledger
D A distributed ledger is a consensus of data shared and synchronized
Days payable outstanding (DPO) geographically across multiple websites, countries, and institutions.
Days payable outstanding (DPO) is an efficiency ratio that
measures the average number of days a company takes to pay
its suppliers.
Dynamic discounting Early payment discount
Dynamic discounting represents the collection of methods in An early payment discount is offered by some companies to
which payment terms can be established between a buyer and motivate credit customers to pay sooner. The early payment
supplier to accelerate payment for goods or services in return for discount is also referred to as a prompt payment discount
a reduced price or discount. or cash discount. The seller often refers to the early payment
discount as a sales discount, while the buyer may refer to the
E early payment discount as a purchases discount.
Electronic invoice (e-invoice)

An e-invoice is an electronic invoice that contains the information Electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP)
required by Council Directive 2010/45/EU and which has been Electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP), usually
issued and received in any electronic format. It contains more consumer-oriented ‘bill paying’ presented and paid through
than just an image of an invoice. An e-invoice also contains data the internet. Other terms such as internet bill presentment and
in a format that computers can understand. This means that an payment (IBPP), electronic bill presentment (EBP) and online bill
e-mail with a PDF file attached is not an e-invoice. presentment and payment (OBPP) are also in use.
E-invoice address Electronic data interchange (EDI)

E-invoice address is the ID used to send or receive an e-invoice. Electronic data interchange (EDI) constitutes the electronic
The type of ID used differs depending on the country and the communication of business transactions, such as orders,
format in use. Typical IDs include GLN, DUNS, VAT-ID, IBAN and confirmations and invoices, between organisations. Third-parties
OVT. A sender must know a recipient’s e-invoice address in order provide EDI services that enable organisations with different
to send an e-invoice. The message is routed to the recipient by equipment to connect. Although interactive access may be a
any operator along the way using the e-invoice address. part of it, EDI implies direct computer-to-computer transactions
into vendors’ databases and ordering systems.
E-invoicing service provider

It is a provider that, on the basis of an agreement, performs Electronic funds transfer (EFT)
certain e-invoicing processes on behalf of a trading partner, or Electronic funds transfer (EFT) represents the moving of funds
that is active in the provision of support services necessary to between different accounts in the same or different banks,
realise such processes. To determine whether an IT vendor is a through the use of wire transfer, automatic teller machines
service provider, the following circumstances should be taken (ATMs) or computers, but without the use of paper documents.
into account: a) That the contract with the trading partner(s)
leads the latter to expect a VAT-compliant service. b) The nature Electronic invoice life cycle
of the service is such that VAT compliance is appropriate. c) The A process comprising: a) the issue of the electronic invoice by, or
provider is insured against service related risks to his clients’ tax in name and on behalf of the supplier; b) receipt of the invoice by
compliance. Trading partners can use multiple e-invoicing service or on behalf of the buyer; and c) storage of the electronic invoice
providers; see 3-Corner Model and 4-Corner Model definitions. during the storage period by or on behalf the supplier and the
An e-invoicing service provider can subcontract all of parts of buyer.
its services to other providers; such subcontractors can also be
e-invoicing service providers if they meet the criteria set out in this Electronic invoice presentment and payment (EIPP)
definition. Electronic invoice presentment and payment has originated
in the B2B world and describes the process through which
companies present invoices and organise payments through the
internet.
Electronic invoicing Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
Electronic invoicing represents the management of an electronic Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is an integrated information
invoice life cycle without the use of paper-based invoices as tax system that serves all departments within an enterprise. Evolving
originals. out of the manufacturing industry, ERP implies the use of
packaged software rather than proprietary software written by or
Electronic payables for one customer. ERP modules may be able to interface with an
A form of electronic payment, using the card infrastructure, organisation’s own software with varying degrees of effort, and,
managed centrally within an organisation, typically by accounts depending on the software, ERP modules may be alterable via
payable (AP). Also known as electronic accounts payable (EAP), the vendor’s proprietary tools as well as proprietary or standard
automated payables, e-payables, push payments, straight programming languages.
through payments (STP), buyer initiated payments (BIP), single-
use accounts and electronic invoice presentment and payment Escrow

(EIPP). Each provider has a proprietary name for its particular Escrow is a financial instrument held by a third-party on behalf
solution; functionality and processes vary for each. of the other two parties in a transaction. The funds are held by
the escrow service until it receives the appropriate written or oral
Electronic procurement instructions or until obligations have been fulfilled. Securities,
Electronic procurement represents the use of the internet or a funds and other assets can be held in escrow.
company’s intranet to procure goods and services used in the
conduct of business. An e-procurement system can streamline F

all aspects of the purchasing process while applying tighter Factor
controls over spending and product preferences. The factor is a financial entity providing factoring facilities.
Electronic signature Factoring

An electronic signature, or e-signature, is any electronic means Factoring is an agreement between a business (assignor) and
that indicates either that a person adopts the contents of an a financial entity (factor) in which the assignor assigns/sells its
electronic message, or more broadly that the person who claims receivables to the factor and the factor provides the assignor
to have written a message is the one who wrote it (and that the with a combination of one or more of the following services with
message received is the one that was sent). By comparison, regard to the receivables assigned: advance of a percentage of
a signature is a stylised script associated with a person. In the amount of receivables assigned, receivables management,
commerce and the law, a signature on a document is an indication collection and credit protection. Usually, the factor administers
that the person adopts the intentions recorded in the document. the assignor’s sales ledger and collects the receivables in its
Both are comparable to a seal. own name. The assignment can be disclosed to the debtor.
Electronic statement presentation (ESP) Faster Payments

It refers to the electronic presentment of a variety of other Faster Payments enable interbank funds transfers in near real
commercial documents, apart from invoices, such as account time, typically initiated via the internet or phone. The Faster
statements, purchase orders, delivery notifications and others. Payments Service represents the biggest advancement in UK
Not included are many unstructured documents that are payments for several decades and is designed to run in parallel
exchanged. with the existing Bacs and CHAPS services. Other financial
institutions are able to join, either as members, or to access
the system through agency arrangements with a member, in the
same way they do with other payment systems.
Fleet Card Invoice discounting
A fleet card is a specialised commercial card used to capture Invoice discounting is a form of short-term borrowing often used
fleet-related expenses (e.g., fuel, vehicle maintenance, repair to improve a company’s working capital and cash flow position.
and service). Invoice discounting allows a business to draw money against its
sales invoices before the customer has actually paid.
Four-party payment system

The four-party payment system is a card payment system Invoice finance
involving the end-user and issuer on one side, and the merchant See Debtor finance.
and acquirer on the other—all of whom are linked by the network;
includes the Visa and MasterCard models. Invoice tracking

Invoice tracking represents the process of collecting and
G managing data and information about an Invoice Item and its
Global process owner (GPO) various traits and/or states as it is followed or tracked throughout
A global process owner is a professional who has (or should have) different phases of its life cycle (lifecycle).
complete ownership of an end-to-end process globally. This
means that once the correct process has been established there L
should be no process deviation, unless approved by the global Level I data
process owner. A global process owner has final approval of the It refers to standard transaction data including date, supplier and
adoption of any technology affecting the given process. total purchase amount. Also written as ‘level 1’ data.
I Level II data
Interchange fees It represents the enhanced transaction data including Level
The interchange fee, also called the discount rate or swipe fee, I data plus a customer-defined reference number, such as a
is the sum paid by merchants to the credit card processor as a purchase order number, and separate sales tax amount. Also
fee for accepting credit cards. The amount of the rate will vary written as ‘level 2’ data.
depending on the type of transaction, but averages about 2% of
the purchase amount. The interchange fee is typically higher for Level III data
online purchases than for in-person purchases, because in the It constitutes the detailed transaction data including Level II data
latter, the card is physically present and available for inspection. plus line-item detail, such as the item purchased. Sometimes
referred to as simply ‘line-item detail.’ Also written as ‘level 3’
Interoperability data.
Interoperability is the ability of making systems and organisations
work together (inter-operate). While the term was initially defined Line-item detail
for information technology or systems engineering services to It is a transaction data reflecting what was purchased. See also
allow for information exchange, a more broad definition takes Level III data.
into account social, political and organisational factors that
impact system to system performance. Another definition refers N

to interoperability as being a task of building coherent services Network provider
for users when the individual components are technically different A network provider is a service provider that connects directly to
and managed by different organisations. both the supplier and the buyer. The supplier or buyer is required
to make only one connection to the network provider, enabling
Invoice them to connect to multiple buyers and/or suppliers. With an
An invoice is an itemised bill for goods sold or services provided, e-invoicing network, there is no requirement to interoperate as
containing details such as individual prices, the total charge and connection is independent of data format and a global network
payment terms. enables the flow of data cross-border.
O PO flipping
One card Purchase order (PO) flipping happens when a supplier receives a
One card is a type of hybrid card in which a single card is issued purchase order from its customer through a supplier portal, and,
to an employee for more than one category of expenses (e.g., at the time of raising an invoice, converts the data provided in
goods/services and travel expenses), eliminating the need to the purchase order into the data on the invoice. The benefit of
carry two separate cards. this process is that, by the time the invoice has been received
by the customer, the matching of the invoice with the purchase
One card plus fleet order information will be perfect. PO flipping is however only
A single card used for purchasing, travel and fleet-related appropriate for the type of supplier that uses a supplier portal
expenses (fuel, vehicle maintenance, others). It combines the to create invoices, typically a lower volume supplier. See also
functionality of a P Card, corporate card and fleet card. Supplier portals.
OpenPEPPOL Procurement
OpenPEPPOL is an open point-to-point network of sending/ Procurement is the process of obtaining or acquiring goods and
receiving web services to cover all of Europe, it is currently services. It also represents the department within an organisation
primarily in use in Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. that is usually responsible for the development of requests for
CENBII v1 is the base format, but domestic transfers might use proposals (RFPs), proposal analysis, supplier market research,
a localised version. negotiations, buying activities, contract administration, inventory
control, etc. Also referred to as purchasing, sourcing or similar
Order-to-cash term.
Order-to-cash, also known as OTC or O2C, is the end-to-end
process by which companies receive an order from a customer, Procure-to-pay (P2P) process
deliver the goods or services, raise the invoice for the transaction The steps the employees of an end-user organisation follow to
to send to the customer and receive the payment from the make a purchase and the associated payment. An organisation
customer’s bank account. Increasingly, the OTC process (which typically has different P2P processes for different types of
is part sales and part accounts receivable) is being managed as purchases/payments; a P-Card P2P process is usually the most
an end-to-end process. See also Accounts Receivable. streamlined. Also referred to as purchase-to-pay or source-to-
settle process.
P
PAC Purchase order (PO)
PAC stands for Authorised Provider of Certified Tax Receipts via Purchase order is a written authorisation for a supplier to
Internet. Authorisation as a PAC is issued by SAT after an entity deliver products and/or services at a specified price according
proofs the technical and legal requirements to ensure the safety, to specified terms and conditions, becoming a legally binding
capacity and infrastructure of the provider in delivering services agreement upon supplier acceptance.
to the taxpayer.
Purchase-to-pay process
Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending See Procure-to-pay (P2P) process.
A method of debt financing that enables individuals to borrow
and lend money – without the use of an official financial institution Purchasing card (P-Card)
as an intermediary. Peer-to-peer lending removes the middleman A purchasing card is a type of commercial card used by
from the process, but it also involves more time, effort and risk organisations to pay for business-related goods and services;
than the general brick-and-mortar lending scenarios. end-user organisation must pay its issuer in full each month for
the total of all P-Card transactions. Also called a procurement
card (ProCard) and purchase card.
R S
Rebate Sales tax (VAT)
It refers to money paid by an issuer to its customer (an end-user Referred to as value added tax in the UK or sales tax in the
organisation) in conjunction with the end-user’s commercial card US, this form of indirect tax is applied to almost all business
usage; the rebate amount is based on various criteria, as defined transactions. It is the company’s responsibility to add the tax
within the contract terms between issuer and end-user. Also amount to its sales transactions and pay the tax on purchase
sometimes called revenue share. transactions. At the end of each period (each quarter) it is the
company’s responsibility to net off the charged tax on the sales
Receivables invoices and the paid tax on the purchase invoices, and, if there
Receivables represent an asset designation applicable to all is a positive balance, to pay this to the government. Increasingly,
debts, unsettled transactions or other monetary obligations the management of VAT is moving into the shared services
owed to a company by its debtors or customers. Receivables organisation, as this is where purchase and sales invoices are
are recorded by a company’s accountants and reported on the processed.
balance sheet, and they include all debts owed to the company,
even if the debts are not currently due. Settlement

Settlement is the process by which merchant and cardholder
Receivable finance banks exchange financial data and value resulting from sales
Receivable finance allows suppliers to finance their receivables transactions, cash disbursements and merchandise credits.
relating to one or many buyers and to receive early payment,
usually at a discount on the value. Shared services

Shared services refer to a business model which is largely
Reconciliation applied by mid-tier or enterprise-sized companies. It is larger
This is the matching of orders done by (internet) shoppers with companies who typically adopt shared services because scale is
incoming payments. Only after a successful reconciliation the one key element of the model. The intention of shared services
merchant will start the delivery process. The extent to which is to run operations more efficiently and more cost-effectively.
payment service providers carry out reconciliation and the way Using the finance function as an example, shared services works
in which they do so (sending an e-mail, providing files) may vary. in the following ways. Firstly, it is the centralisation of a finance
activity, the consolidation of systems that activity runs off, the

Reverse factoring standardisation of the processes that support that activity, and
Reverse factoring is an arrangement made between large buying the automation (and continuous improvement) of that activity’s
organisations and banks with the intention to finance suppliers, processes. Secondly, it is the running of this centralised,
and provide a lower buying price to the buyer. Like ‘factoring’, consolidated activity as a “business within a business,” which
there are three parties involved – the buyer, supplier and the means the shared services organisation will often have its own
factoring company (in this case, typically a bank). The bank profit and loss account (P&L), will treat the rest of the business
takes on the responsibility to pay the supplier’s invoice early as its customer, will hire and develop service oriented staff, will
for a discounted price. The buyer then settles with the bank, possibly have service level agreements (SLAs) with its customers,
according to the terms of the original invoice. The supplier has and will charge for its services. When a company centralises
offered or agreed to a discount based on early payment, and this a function, it is not quite accurate to call it shared services.
discount is shared between the bank and the buyer. Centralisation is just one aspect of shared services.
SOAP (Finvoice) Supplier
Transmission frame (SOAP) specifies the sender, recipient and The supplier represents a merchant/vendor with whom the
service provider data. The service provider routes the message organisation does business.
to its recipient on the basis of frame data. File may include
several Finvoice messages. Each message must include a Supplier finance

transmission frame (SOAP). Supplier finance is a set of solutions that optimises cash flow
by allowing businesses to lengthen their payment terms to
SOAP (generic) their suppliers while providing the option for their large and
Simple object access protocol (SOAP) is a web service protocol SME suppliers to get paid early. See also Supply chain finance,
or message framework for transferring XML-based messages Reverse factoring.
between web services. BT does not support UBL directly, but it is
able to identify and handle an UBL message wrapped in a SOAP- Supplier onboarding
envelope. This refers to getting a supplier set up on a particular program,
such as purchase-cards, dynamic discounting or electronic
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) invoicing. Supplier onboarding involves both the communications
SaaS is a cost-effective way for companies to ‘rent’ software concerning the process change and the supplier’s role within it
without the burden of installation and maintenance, because it is and the technical set-up of the program.
supplied, hosted (via the internet) and maintained by an external
vendor. Supplier portal

A supplier portal is the front end of the e-invoicing or
Source-to-settle process e-procurement platform which enrolled suppliers connect to via
See Procure-to-pay (P2P) process. the internet. Here, suppliers can accept purchase orders, change
Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) profile information such as bank details and addresses, flip
SMEs are organisations which employ fewer than 250 persons purchase orders (see PO flipping) and raise invoices. Supplier
and which have an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 50 portals are generally used by low volume suppliers, as the
million, and/ or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR supplier will have to re-key the data into its own billing system.
43 million. One significant benefit for a supplier using a supplier portal is
that it gets full visibility of the invoice process, namely when the
Split liability invoice will be paid.
Liability for commercial card charges is split between the
cardholder and end-user organisation, based on merchant Supply chain finance (SCF)
category codes; for example, the cardholder might be liable for The use of financial instruments, practices and technologies to
travel and entertainment (T&E) expenses, while the organisation optimise the management of the working capital and liquidity
is liable for the other transactions. tied up in supply chain processes for collaborating business
partners. SCF is largely ‘event-driven’. Each intervention
Straight-through payment (STP) (finance, risk mitigation or payment) in the financial supply
Straight-through payment (STP) is a specific version of electronic chain is driven by an event in the physical supply chain. The
payables; an end-user organisation receives and approves a development of advanced technologies to track and control
supplier invoice, then initiates payment to the supplier through its events in the physical supply chain creates opportunities to
issuer. The supplier does not need to process a card transaction, automate the initiation of SCF interventions.
as payment is made directly through its merchant account.
Supply chain payments V
Supply chain payments optimises cash flow by allowing Validation
businesses to lengthen their payment terms to their suppliers, E-invoice XML-data is validated usually against schema which
while also providing an alternative option to their suppliers to get means that the structure and content of the data is checked. Failed
paid early. validation means that the invoice is going to be rejected by the
receiving operator which then sends negative acknowledgement
T to sending operator which forwards the acknowledgement to
Trade finance sender.
Trade finance signifies financing for trade, and it concerns both
domestic and international trade transactions. Trade finance Value added

includes such activities as lending, issuing letters of credit, The enhancement a company gives its product or service before
factoring, export credit and insurance. Companies involved offering the product to customers. Value added is used to describe
with trade finance include importers and exporters, banks and instances where a firm takes a product that may be considered a
financiers, insurers and export credit agencies, as well as other homogeneous product, with few differences (if any) from that of
service providers. a competitor and provides potential customers with a feature or
add-on that gives it a greater sense of value.
Treasury
Treasury is defined as the funds of a group, institution or W
government, or to the department responsible for budgeting Working capital
and spending. Another definition refers to treasury as being Working capital represents the cash and other liquid assets
the department of a government in charge of the collection, needed to finance the everyday running of a business such as the
management and expenditure of the public revenue. payment of salaries and then purchase of raw materials.
Three-party payment system X

The three-party payment system is a card payment system XML
involving the end-user on one side and the merchant on the The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a flexible markup
other—linked by the network, which also fulfills the role of issuer language for structured electronic documents. XML is based on
and acquirer; includes the American Express and Discover SGML (standard generalised markup language), an international
models. standard for electronic documents. XML is commonly used by
data-exchange services to send information between otherwise
U incompatible systems.
UBL
Universal Business Language (UBL), is an XML-based format with
corresponding business processes created by OASIS, it amongst
others contains scenarios for sourcing, ordering and billing. Many
newer formats (EHF, CENBII and OIOUBL) are localisations of UBL
2.0.
Underwriting
In B2B payments, underwriting represents the department within
an acquirer/processor organisation that evaluates the financial
stability and risk of a potential merchant customer.

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B2B Fintech: Payments, Supply Chain

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INSIGHTS INTO THE B2B PAYMENTS, SUPPLY CHAIN

RELEASE VERSION 1.0

TEL: +31 20 893 4315

banks caused by technology giants and innovative startups

The second change is reflected in the modernization of domestic management?

payments infrastructures. There are approx. 15 countries where

digitization in transaction banking. Retail banking has experienced

as great opportunities. of implementing a (commercial) payments solution or a financing

service emerges as top priority. Questions such as “How to gain

ownership, regulation, M&A, standardization.

• R egulation (keeping a watchful eye on regulation & law is

Fintech is already here, so companies must pass the testing

intelligence and data analytics) to address convenience, user

occurred in the payments segment.

the most interesting moves, however, might be MasterCard’s

Bank of Scotland, which collectively own 80% of VocaLink.

desire to compete with Visa abroad.

incumbents vs fintechs war. Payments & finance service providers,

banks and corporations are either investing in fintech players,

acquire them, partner them or build from scratch labs/hubs/

accelerators to spur innovation (more on this, later in the Guide).

• Optimisation, standardization: Last, but not least, it’s time to

optimise, standardise, revise.

There is almost a tangible feeling that ‘time is now’ for revamping

old infrastructure, honing processes, enhancing operations,

perking up data analysis, augmenting reporting, etc. You’ve

heard it before, certainly, but it bears repeating. The time for

innovation is now. But (sic!) not before the industry comes to

terms (literally) regarding what supply chain finance actually

means, what is meant by late payment, etc.

In the first part of the guide, we investigate the initiatives in

the field of B2B payments, supply chain finance & e-invoicing

describing various models for digital finance, as presented by key

industry players, either in the form of an exclusive interview or an

25 Innovation in payments & banking

36 The power of data & traceability

63 Regulation & law

72 Part 2 – Company profiles

in legacy infrastructure and the need for faster payments has

payments from my mobile phone enjoying the same convenience I

using innovative technology. In other words, fintechs build and

innovation. faster sound compelling.

current payments infrastructure.

How banks, corporates & payment schemes react

worldwide. Europe takes the lion’s share with 54 accelerators,

opening innovation labs/hubs, via high-profile partnerships, etc.

of America has a USD 3 billion annual budget for investing in

and alongside Nasdaq, Citi, and other industry players invested

mostly ignoring nonbank disrupters.

What’s more, all big players – banks, payments providers, card

help innovators develop and scale their ideas. MasterCard, on

and enterprise customers. Since its inception in 2014, the

Wells Fargo Startup Accelerator has received applications from

innovative companies in 23 countries.

their bank relation.

“Banks foresee benefits for corporations by virtue of the

- Enrico Camerinelli, senior analyst at Aite Group

So, if the contribution of cross-border payments to total payments

"As nonbank players increasingly encroach on the traditional

1.74 billion of 2014. In 2015, almost 20,000 British SMEs raised

• R egulation (keeping a watchful eye on regulation & law is

• Optimisation, standardization: Last, but not least, it’s time to