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Thank you Charmaine. The good thing with extended payment services like e-invoicing - and data extraction services built on it (for VAT-reporting, automated accounting and cash flow estimates) - is that there is very little need (hardly any) to integrate these into legacy environments. This also means that these can easily be delivered as white label cloud services from external sources (cheaper, better,  in-cloud innovative and global connectivity ready). This also means that legacy renewal is not disturbed - single-sign-on link in e-bank e-invoicing is not a big deal. 

Why banks do not rush into this is difficult to understand - it is high time to defend the all-important payment business - and that is not possible without a full value chain approach.

Thank you Charmaine. The good thing with extended payment services like e-invoicing - and data extraction services built on it (for VAT-reporting, automated accounting and cash flow estimates) - is that there is very little need (hardly any) to integrate these into legacy environments. This also means that these can easily be delivered as white label cloud services from external sources (cheaper, better,  in-cloud innovative and global connectivity ready). This also means that legacy renewal is not disturbed - single-sign-on link in e-bank e-invoicing is not a big deal. 

Why banks do not rush into this is difficult to understand - it is high time to defend the all-important payment business - and that is not possible without a full value chain approach.

I would put most of the emphasis on payment value chain automation. This is where value creation opportunities for the SME mass markets is huge - a customer and staff-inspiring vision that can be achieved with very small investments (white-label cloud services bolted onto e-banking via single-sign-on). 

Tragic if banks still believe that massive investments are needed in the new networked-economy-full-value-chain services area - and must wait because of this.  

E-invoicing was made mandatory by law for the public sector in Denmark in 2005. E-invoicing is defacto mandatory by now in most large enterprises in the Nordics. 85% of enterprises use structured e-invoicing in Finland (PDF does not deliver structured data properly). Of course this demands that your e-bank has the send- and receive e-invoice functionality..

Dean is naturally having a point and I am not saying that there would not be case for moving from spending too much on legacy maintenance to spending more on modern - soon cloud-based infra. Some can - and should still stretch. But no bank should fail to see the opportunity and actually also responsibility from introducing new massive value especially for SME-customers by moving down- and also up-the-value-chain from ISO20022 payments and ISO20022 account statements (starting from e-invoicing and automated accounting). It does not take much investments - and should in no case be excluded for infra-improvement reasons.

Much can be done for real time business, financial and government reporting transactions (extended payment services) with simple snap-on cloud services. Payments between accounts in the same bank have been real time already for ages in most Nordic countries. This is why most enterprises alreay in the M-sector have accounts in all major banks. Now it is time for banks to study how also x-bank payments can become realtime. A step-by-step approach can make it manageable and more economical - but of course customers will have to pay also for these investments - hopefully in a transparent way.

I cannot see why the massive new value (income potential) created with the obvious nearfield whole-value-chain approach would need integration worth mentioning let alone massive capex in payment platform renewal (which as such become necessary - but for other - not new-customer-value - reasons).

Fingerprint is a good move - especially in mobile. Just keep an eye on the attachment procedure so that there is a strong ID used so that the fingerprint is attached to the right person.  It maybe a good idea to start with balance checking and use push-SMS-message confirmation when moving to payments (to new receivers or large amounts). Same SMS-confirmation (press A) used for paying e-invoice on due date - or press N for real time payment.

The beauty with e-invoicing is that you do not have to link it to any - or very few legacy systems.