Mizuho Bank and Fujitsu in e-invoicing and payments pilot

The agreement, signed by the two companies on July 29, will investigate invoice and payment digitization and accounts receivable reconciliation automation services.

The partnership comes in the lights of increasingly accelerating interest in e-invoicing and financial EDI both in and outside Japan.

The trial’s goal is to digitize all transactions from invoice to payment and receipt, and to dramatically improve automation of accounts receivable reconciliation for companies by implementing EIPP and financial EDI in the invoice and payments processes of business transactions.

The pilot has started in July 2016 and will end in October 2016 while the effectiveness verification will take place during November 2016 and March 2017.

This field trial will specifically examine process optimization and cost reduction and enhancement of internal controls and acceleration of settlements.

Also, Mizuho Bank and Fujitsu aim to provide services that support a shift to XML telegrams for domestic payment instructions between companies, which is being considered within the financial and industrial sectors.

What’s more, both companies are studying the feasibility of creating a possible common environment that could also improve back-office productivity and enable business process outsourcing of credit management tasks for companies.

In December 2015, the Japanese Financial Services Agency and Financial System Council suggested, with regard to the messaging format used in domestic payment instructions between companies, that the current fixed length telegrams be eliminated by 2020, and that companies migrate to XML telegrams, which offers superior information volume and data compatibility.