Announcements, Payments Efficiency

Two New Industry Efforts to Propel B2B Payments Toward Modernization

The Federal Reserve and the Business Payments Coalition (BPC) recently announced 73 organizations have joined an industry effort to stand up an operational pilot exchange framework to enable businesses of all kinds to exchange electronic invoices (e-invoices). Another 42 organizations will strive to assess whether a similar exchange framework can facilitate electronic delivery of remittance information across all payment types.

The E-invoice Exchange Market Pilot and the Remittance Delivery Assessment Work Group are two industry efforts aimed at catalyzing the modernization of business-to-business (B2B) payments in the United States. The commitment to these work efforts by organizations across the industry is evidence that there is a real desire to modernize B2B payment processes. Digital payments and processes benefit businesses through lower costs, better cash management, error reduction, risk mitigation, increased transparency and improved efficiency.

“The Federal Reserve could not be more thrilled about the tremendous talent and expertise across the payments industry committed to creating a more efficient, end-to-end payment process,” said Shonda Clay, executive vice president and chief of customer and industry engagement, who leads the Federal Reserve’s payments improvement strategy. “This innovative work will catalyze B2B payments modernization and shape the future of the payments industry.”

E-invoice Exchange Market Pilot

E-invoice Exchange Market Pilot participants (Off-site) will work to advance the development, testing, implementation and interim oversight of the U.S. e-invoice exchange framework. The participants have extensive experience or expertise in sending, accepting or processing corporate invoices, knowledge of e-invoice exchange frameworks, open-source tools, access points and/or registry services. The market pilot will run through year-end 2022 to establish an operational B2B invoice exchange framework for the U.S. market in 2023.

Remittance Delivery Assessment Work Group

Remittance Delivery Assessment Work Group participants (Off-site) will help determine the viability of a framework to support the exchange of electronic remittance information across all payment types. The participants have a broad range of experience or expertise in remittance and payment processing and posting, and remittance information delivery processes. This group’s work from September 2021 through mid-2022 will leverage the progress and momentum generated by the BPC to transform the delivery of electronic remittance information. The success of the work group will be integral to advancing creative, solution-oriented approaches to efficiently deliver and accept electronic remittance information for B2B payments in the United States.

The E-invoice Exchange Market Pilot and Remittance Delivery Assessment Work Group will continue to drive innovation and adoption of electronic B2B payments processes in the United States.

To stay informed of the progress of both initiatives, join the FedPayments Improvement Community (select “E-invoicing” and “Electronic Payments and Remittance” under the interest preferences), and follow FedPayments Improvement on LinkedIn (Off-site) and Twitter (Off-site).