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Unlocking the SME funding market and the power of spend analytics

One of the most exciting product releases in the e-invoicing and trade finance over the last year was OB10’s ‘Express Payments’ service a supply chain finance service that allows organisations to receive payment on approved invoices within three days. The key feature of this trade finance solution was that it covers ALL suppliers not just the larger ‘cherry picked’ suppliers. This opened up the supply chain finance market enormously as OB10 as one of the leading e-invoicing providers working for some of the largest companies in the world, covers all suppliers. OB10 can roll-out a supply chain finance programme easily for all suppliers as they already deal with them and have little work in enrolment.

Enormous under-exploited potential
The enormous potential of this expanded supply chain finance market and the under-used potential of invoice data for Spend Analytics Management has been recognised by Tungsten Corporation who on 4th September unveiled their:

  1. conditional acquisition of UK-based global B2B e-invoicing network operator OB10 for £99 million
  2. signing of a five year rolling licence agreement with @UK PLC to deploy their advance analytic software technology to enable TungstenAnalytics to be delivered across Tungsten’s global e-invoicing network following the acquisition of OB10
  3. their agreement to acquire an identified duly authorised
    UK bank, whose assets solely comprise short term UK gilts and / or certificates of deposit (the “Bank”) to specialize in the provision of supply chain financing.

Tungsten’s vision
In their Press Release Tungsten described their strategic vision: “To create a leading cloud based global trading network. Tungsten intends to monetise OB10’s existing e-invoicing capabilities through the addition of value added services such as seamless electronically secure encrypted invoice discounting against “approved for pay” invoices (substantially reducing fraud and dilutions risks so evident in traditional “old model” supply chain finance) and spend analytic solutions (through TungstenAnalytics).“ 

Combining all three elements - a leading e-invoicing service, a dedicated source of funding and artificial intelligence based Supplier Analytics software - enables Tungsten to unlock the significant potential for both SMEs and large corporates, see figure:


Source & Copyright©2013 - J&W Associates

The deal is expected to be completed in the next 6 weeks and the initial focus will be on OB10’s UK customer base. 

In the longer term
Completion of the Transaction will give more resources to OB10 to develop and deliver value-added services, including spend analytic solutions, to the predominantly investment grade universe of buying organisations that are already clients of OB10’s leading global e-invoicing network. A key part of the strategy will be to deploy Tungsten’s financial services expertise to create an invoice financing capability through the Bank and so give OB10’s customer base of suppliers the ability to accelerate payment of their receivables in a straightforward and cost-­‐effective manner.

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