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Bo Harald

Chairman/Founding member, board member

Trust Infra for Real Time Economy Prgrm & MyData,

Member since

04 Nov 2008

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Helsinki Region

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Seriously about sustainability

A new study by Maija Tenhunen and Esko Penttinen about the carbon footprint of invoicing reveals that the paper based process generates as much as 450g on average and electronic invoice can go as low as 150g. 300 sustainability reasons to go digital every time an invoice is sent – translated to EU today this equals over 8 million tons. So it is ...

15 November 2010 /payments Innovation in Financial Services

Milestone reached - for EU and beyond

The Trade Standard Evaluation Group approved the ISO 20022 (UNIFI) standard for electronic invoices on the 29th of October 2010. The opening address by Jorgen Holmquist (Director General at the EU-commission) to the first meeting of the EC Expert Group on e-Invoicing in February 2008 clearly stated the need for a standard for Europe – but a global ...

14 November 2010 /payments Innovation in Financial Services

It is our money..

Studies made for EU reveal that the VAT Gap (difference between theoretical VAT receipts and actual payments) exceeds 100BN€ every year since 2000 (118,8bn€ in 2009). All of this is not fraud or loopholes - there can be legal exceptions. In any case it is our money - something we tax payers should be interested in getting paid (to get lower salary...

11 November 2010 /payments Innovation in Financial Services

Productivity growth - desperately needed magic elixir

Very spot on article in The Economist. Some snippets (emphasis mine) and comments: - “productivity growth is the closest economics gets to a magic elixir, especially for ageing advanced economies” - productivity depends on skills (my favorite: learning by doing – by moving around and up the ladder..), capital invested in tools (mostly IT) and the p...

10 November 2010 /payments /retail Innovation in Financial Services

Germany to simplify e-invoicing

The proposal states: “The requirement of authenticity and the integrity of the content will remain as abstract conditions for the sales tax approval of electronic invoices, but the other requirements for electronic invoices will be abandoned. So, there will be no technical requirements anymore that need to be meet by a German company. “As with pape...

05 November 2010 /payments Innovation in Financial Services

From sending e-invoice to receiving payment in 30 minutes

AT SIBOS we heard Ossi Leikola of Nordea Bank describing how it is already today possible for an e-invoice sender to get his payment in less than 30 minutes after having sent the invoice - the target being to make it much faster. I have to confess that I felt quite proud. This is the new customer value that banks moving into extended payments can ...

04 November 2010 /payments Innovation in Financial Services

Linking e-invoicing to trade finance

http://www.swift.com/resources/documents/supply_trade_article_casterman_opinion.pdf André Casterman of SWIFT makes a good case for it in the enclosed article.

31 October 2010 /payments Innovation in Financial Services

Will banks do their part?

For most of us it is self-evident that unstructured invoicing is an anachronistic relic that will soon be history. It is also obvious that the solution to getting the enterprise mass market and consumers onboard is to get the banks to take their responsibility and see the more than evident business case. The arguments are well known: 1. invoicing ...

31 October 2010 /payments Innovation in Financial Services

Will the European Commission pass the next test?

The first recent test was to find an automatic non-political tool - steering member states away from overspending and overborrowing. The test was passed with flying colors – but was put aside (for a while) by national politics. Let us hope it gets back on track soon. The next test is to do something real – and bold – for the Single Market. Most of...

31 October 2010 /payments Innovation in Financial Services

A Digital Single Market - why and how?

DG Infosoc is gearing up activities under the Digital Single Market headline. When this is being rolled out it is important to ask the question: Why? The obvious answers are that large scale x-sector digitalization is: 1. making enterprises more competitive as (i) they become more cost-efficient, (ii) serve their customer better (digitally), (iii)...

29 September 2010 /payments Innovation in Financial Services

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Bo Harald

Bo's opinions

Seriously about sustainability

Milestone reached - for EU and beyond

It is our money..

Productivity growth - desperately needed magic elixir

Germany to simplify e-invoicing

From sending e-invoice to receiving payment in 30 minutes

Linking e-invoicing to trade finance

Will banks do their part?

Will the European Commission pass the next test?

A Digital Single Market - why and how?

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