A Life in eInvoicing – Passion, Peppol and Me

In this episode of the Finance and Procurement People Podcast, PPN CEO, Ellen Leith talks to Charles Bryant, a leading figure in the eInvoicing world for many years, and as the UK gears up to the mandate in April 2029, he shares his thoughts on the background behind it and some of the hopes, excitement and challenges along the way and his personal journey to get there. 

International Banking Sparks Curiosity and Provides a Useful Background

Away from eInvoicing, working life first took Charles to the world of international banking and overseas to Hong Kong and Australia as well as here in the City at a time when corporate banking was in a period of tremendous growth. The experience ignited the possibilities to be gained from connectivity and collaboration, both between people and technology and an appreciation of different cultures and communities and how they work. The experience offered a very useful background to everything that followed - how supply chains work, how trade is financed, what documents get passed around to get things done. 

The Formation of the Single European Payments Area (SEPA)

And that curiosity around collaboration and cooperation turned towards infrastructure and systems which ultimately led to the door at Swift, the global messaging network company to securely send payment instructions. It was at a time when the Euro was first being introduced and Charles was asked by the European Commission to head up an organisation as Secretary General to transform the payments environment, out of which they created the Single European Payments Area (SEPA), where Charles created the rule books and standards which are now just a part of life! 

eInvoicing and the Creation of EESPA

And at that point there was a strong policy direction coming out of the EU that there was also something interesting going on before that payment element, in other words, the invoice and the thought was that it needed automating too. And that's when, twenty years or so ago, after he discovered a whole industry of solution providers already working on this, and he'd formed the expert group, European eInvoicing Service Providers Association (EESPA) to look into it, he had to tell the banks that he didn't think they were necessarily the right people to take it forward. 

Peppol comes into the Frame

And at around 2012 onwards, Peppol was just getting going as a result of a large scale pilot promoted by the European Commission and several Member States to create a framework for the exchange of information in a secure, robust fashion, with the equivalent of a phone book so you could see who was addressable. In the beginning the focus was mainly on public procurement. And then later down the line EESPA (now GENA - Global Exchange Network Association) and Peppol engaged in a dialogue drawing on their respective strengths - a strong trade association representing end users and a very advanced technical organisation with the advantage of economies of scale. And so a close working partnership was formed. The premise is that end-users should be able to interact seamlessly without having to worry about what's going on in the middle. And that's what Peppol provides, Charles says, pointing out that there are also plenty of other national networks which do something similar, although Peppol is making great strides into national domains too. 

Governments soon realised that an eInvoice could become a conduit to providing more accurate and timely tax reporting. Some countries prefer to do that through a central infrastructure, such as Italy. And many mandates try to do both fiscal efficiency and supply chain efficiency. 

The UKeLab and the UK's eInvoicing Mandate

And that's where the UK comes in, though perhaps a little late to the party, Charles highlights a meeting with our CEO Ellen Leith at The Exchange Summit back in 2024, long before a mandate was being considered and there, between them they created the UK eInvoicing Advocacy Lab (UKeLab) - a multi-stakeholder group with the aim of driving eInvoicing as a public policy priority here at home. With the change of government, and the desire to do something to help the economy, HMRC took the view that we could learn from experiences overseas and a mandate was announced! The group is now part of the co-creation process among many other players in the community. DBT and HMRC are now pushing ahead to form a roadmap to be announced at this year's Budget.