Founders, Rhys Jones and others, and new owners of Accountis, FundTech must be so thrilled to finally be able to announce the deal with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). Accountis has been working on this deal for many years, which I came to know at least over 18 months ago, but was requested not to blog about it at the time. The relationship between Accountis and RBS thrived when Accountis decided to use RBS Trust Assured to authenticate the identity of its userbase during e-invoicing transactions.
Two key reasons that further attracted FundTech to Accountis other than the team and technology are their flagship customer DHL and the deal with RBS. This is a deal that Accountis had to complete. Whilst I have no direct information, I assume this was also part of the earn-outs built into the sale of Accountis. This would have put significant pressure on Rhys to get the deal completed as quickly as possible. The technology platform also required considerable amount of work to meet the strict requirements of RBS. All that hard work is finally bearing fruit. Well done guys!
So here is the press release:
Accountis Ltd, a Fundtech company and provider of secure financial document exchange and payment systems, has announced a multi-year agreement with The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to provide the bank with an RBS branded e-invoicing solution and service. The partnership deal enables RBS to provide a VAT compliant e-invoicing service to their corporate customers with the prospect of additional invoice based financing services from the bank.
Corporates currently have very little overall visibility of the Financial Supply Chain. The Accountis e-invoicing service provides detailed status information, such as proof of delivery, acceptance, query and approval status for all documents involved in a business transaction from Purchase Order to Invoice. Invoice receipt and discrepancy resolution are often the most costly elements of this process. The service provides real time dispute management that enables our customers to optimise the speed with which exceptions are resolved.
The use of the bank e-invoicing service within the Accounts Receivables department provides corporates with the possibility of improved operational efficiencies and, more importantly, with quicker payments, reduced ‘days sales outstanding’ and reduced working capital requirements. It also facilitates the bank provision of invoice-based financing services. The use of the bank e-invoicing service within the Accounts Payables department provides corporates with the opportunity to implement efficient early payment discounting schemes, thereby reducing spend. It also provides detailed and fine-grained visibility on order book and enables further bank trade finance services.
Overall, e-invoicing provides corporate clients with significant benefits and provides RBS with a powerful addition to their suite of corporate services. Ian Watkinson, Head of E-Invoicing for RBS, explains;
“For our customers we see e-invoicing as a fast-track to saving time and money. In addition to eliminating paper and automating manual processes, users of the service will quickly benefit from real-time document management, faster settlements and better working capital optimisation.”
“AT RBS, we see e-invoicing as a strategic addition to our existing product portfolio. By offering additional transaction services such as e-invoice delivery, we will gain greater visibility of our customer’s end-to-end, financial supply chain transactions. This will help us to improve our understanding of their business and strengthen our long-term relationship. It also places us in a better position to offer additional services such as supplier finance provisions and other innovative finance arrangements.”
Peter Radcliffe, Executive Chairman, Accountis, said: “The e-invoicing marketplace is growing substantially and customers are demanding a simple but flexible service they can trust. We are delighted that RBS has recognised this need and has chosen to partner with Accountis to offer a best-in-class service to their customers. This partnership places both Accountis and RBS is an excellent position to fully embrace this growing opportunity.”