European E-invoicing Service Provider Association (EESPA) oficially launched!
As most of you probably heard, a few weeks ago, the European E-invoicing Service Provider Association (EESPA) has been officially established as an international non-profit organisation. The association currently consist of 30+ members, including the largest e-invoicing service providers in Europe (in terms of volumes B2B).
The group has a few objectives, including representing the supply side of the industry in the European E-invoicing Stakeholder forum, and in addition to that, the creation of an interoperable exo-system of e-invoicing service providers, where invoices can be exchanged back and forth between providers.
The latter objective is a very important one, as interoperability between service providers is the key to establish sustainable growth in e-invoicing adoption: it allows any company, including SME’s to select their own service provider without being forced into the service provider of another buyer or supplier.
Actually, Europe has a number of such interoperability initiatives: SWIFT is doing a pilot for invoice exchange based on work done in the EBA E-invoicing working group, PEPPOL has a framework for an e-invoicing eco-system with a focus on public sector invoicing, HubAlliance has an interoperability framework, and then there are a number of domestic approaches (VeR in Germany).
However, there seems to be space for a pan-European solution with a pragmatic approach. One that is based on existing initiatives and frameworks, and one that does create network effects in the eco-system, incentivising service providers to join the initiative.
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