OB10, the e-Invoicing network that handles £90bn of payments each year, has launched OB10 Express Payments, a supply chain finance service that allows organisations to receive payment on approved invoices within three days.

When one of the 150 large corporate groups, who uses OB10's e-invoicing service (who have suppliers sending invoices in 170 countries), signs up for the new Express Payment service 100% of their suppliers are offered the facility as it is part of the OB10 service. Immediately, the suppliers are offered early payment in exchange for a discount. On Home Page of the OB10 portal there is now an option to use the Express Payments service:

Source & Copyright©2012 - OB10

Suppliers can look at their approved invoices and select which ones they want to be paid early and accept the discount, as figure below shows.

Express Payments: selecting payments for early payment

Source & Copyright©2012 - OB10

---

This really does change the game in e-invoicing and supply chain financing. No longer is there a long drawn-out supplier enrolment programme for SCF - all suppliers can use or not the funding immediately. Not only, that this is global, OB10 services suppliers in 170 countries. With global recession likely to remain for several years, there is no question, whether this will be successful. The only question is: who is going to fund the early payment and how much more of the financial supply chain OB10 can embrace? Just providing e-invoicing is no longer enough.
Moreover, UK government take note: this will apply to all suppliers, not just a small segment.