EIPP (e-invoicing) and StartUp World

Apologies for the lack of recent coverage on eipp/e-invoicing. Thought leadership cannot be provided without undertaking adequate research. Wouldn’t it be great if document/information search time can be reduced. This is one of the reasons why I founded edocr with Rhys, Mike and Chris. So please upload your press releases, white papers, case studies, product information, etc on EIPP/e-invoicing to edocr today. 

Let’s have a quick look at what some of the leading e-invoicing/EIPP providers have been up to recently, starting with OB10 and Accountis:

OB10

In April, OB10 reported that their clients have saved 1,123 trees in 2007, 223 trees more than in 2006. e-invoicing is clearly an environmentally friendly technology. OB10 has arrived its green totals by calculating number of sheets of paper saved via e-invoicing, and then using standard industry figures to arrive at a number of trees saved. OB10 also reports that e-invoicing has also saved 93 barrels of oil, 192 MWs of energy, 2,800 pounds of air pollutants and diversion of 156 cubic yards of paper from eventual landfill disposal. Other figures released by OB10 states that 10 percent of the trees cut globally attribute to paper invoices and production of paper invoices takes as much energy consumption as powering 20 million homes. Plus an year’s worth of invoices take up as much landfill space as 10 football fields. Startling! So what are we doing about it?

Carbon footprint is clearly a topic that is on everyone’s mind from corporate to consumer. e-invoicing clearly is a technology that could help reduce corporate carbon footprint. Whilst what OB10 reported should be congratulated, I just wonder whether they considered the followings in their calculations:

1. The number of buyers (accounts payable) who still demand a paper invoice in addition to e-invoicing.
2. The cost of energy used for operating computer systems both at client ends as well as by OB10 and others.

Whilst you cannot do much about item (2) other than to switch to low energy servers such as those supplied by Sun Microsystems and environmentally friendly data centres, you certainly can control item (1). In this respect, all of us should be playing our part to not print that invoice.

Jamie, I know you did not want to be the first mover with edocr, but please rethink of uploading your press releases, etc, so that I and others can provide additional coverage for your news! In addition, edocr is environmentally friendly, i.e:

1. No need to transfer large files and duplicate storage.
2. Read as many times as you like without printing.

Accountis

As you know very well, unlike OB10, Accountis is no longer an independent company. Accountis was acquired by FundTech, Inc early this year.

Ifor Williams, Sales Director at Accountis, has recently published a great article on EIPP titled "Extending Payments to the Full Cycle”, which can be accessed by clicking the thumbnail. It looks at the opportunity e-invoicing holds for banks and how they can take advantage of it. By combining billing services, specifically EIPP, with their existing transaction services, banks can deliver a unique and valuable end-to-end commercial service. The article was originally published on GTNews.

My understanding from Rhys Jones, Founder of Accountis is that Accountis will remain very much its own entity. Being part of FundTech, it allows Accountis to leverage much larger network of organisations and connectivity for rapid growth. However, we are yet to hear publicly about any new major wins. DHL continues to remain their key European client.

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This is written on flight but posted after landing as there isn’t a mechanism to post this any other way, eventhough my shiny new mac is picking up a "Free WiFi Signal". According to the list of attendees, I am accompanied by 19 exceptional individuals (so called entrepreneurs) and 27 supporters which include organisers to  media including Tom Watson, representing the UK Government. Some of them are already in the US (Stewart from Sun Microsystems, Jack Fairhall from Kwiqq, etc).

So here I am sitting next to two journalists, Ashley Noris, Founder of Shinymedia and Edie Lush of The Spectator magazine. We had a lot to speak as you do in long haul flights. Ashley is an entrepreneur who has raised venture capital funding for Shinymedia, and its a great pleasure to travel with a media startup. Whilst I cannot check his credentials and portfolio at present, I understand he has a similar product to gadgetspy run by Chris Haslam, who came on board to set-up edocr.

It was also good to catch up with Kristofer Mansson this morning, Founder of Silobreaker, whom I met at a large exhibition last year in London. We spoke about working together then and continued our discussion again today. Whilst we all have our own agendas, this mission also allows us to find ways of working with each other. And with that thought, I presented a challenge to Ashley: Write an article of how each company could work with each of the other 19 companies. Whilst we are of different sizes (some are post-funded whilst others are just thinking about it), collectively we can be larger than any one company. I am a great believer that we need to work at local level whilst nurturing global ambitions. Whilst I am at the start of the journey, I am almost thinking about the end, not just next Saturday, but in a years time and beyond. If statistics are to be believed, not all 20 companies may be live in 12 to 24 months time. But it would be great to look at the progress of the 20 companies in 12 months time, don’t you agree?

Here is the second challenge. Somebody need to take a profile of each of these 20 companies and then compare the progress each company has made in 12 months time. Who would rise to this challenge? Whilst all our profiles are on CrunchBase, a snap shot need to be taken. Would webmission08 be forgotten in 12 months time? Will there be a webmission09 next year? If so, who would represent the North next year? How would I like to see edocr in 12 months time? This is certainly a key date in edocr’s short life.

Ok. here are some targets for me to achieve by April 2009:

• Funded
• Full time team in place -
• edocr Version 3 launched (formally) - edocr has five stages: alpha, beta, launch, growth and dominate- funding will decide how quickly we can move from one stage to another.
• Revenues of GBP 75,000 (I know this is low - but remember we are web 2.0 - yes, I like to hit exponential curve in late 2009 as we enter launch and growth stages)
• Presence in Silicon Valley
• Brand equity - a well understood proposition. instant recognition.
• Traffic - not so worried - more interested in number of companies on board as customers (would edocr be hosting most of public-facing documents from HSBC? - at least lot more than we have today!)

If you are in San Francisco, I will be staying at the Clift Hotel till 25th morning. Do contact me if you are interested in:

• Building relationships with Northern UK technology startups (eveo Ltd)
• Want to know more about edocr (edocr Ltd)
• Want to know more about e-invoicing/EIPP/Supply Chain Finance in UK and Europe (evigon Ltd)
• Want to run an event in the North of England (eveo Ltd)
• Thinking about entering the UK market (evigon Ltd)

Just for clarity:

• edocr - YouTube/iTunes/Amazon/Google Search/Speed Dating for business pdfs
• eveo - one stop shop for event management (no website, but first brand is Northern StartUp 2.0)
• evigon - management consultancy and advisory services (no website yet - check this blog for competency and also my LinkedIn profile)

Lastly, this journey would have not been possible if it was not for:

• Sun Microsystems - the startups true friend (contact: Stewart Townsend)
• Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus- the only place for technology startups in the North (contact: Paul Treloar).

That will do for now! Catch you with the next post soon.

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Here is the latest e-invoicing quarterly from Bruno Koch of Billentis.

It’s almost customary for me to review Bruno’s e-invoicing quarterly, but have decided against it this time. However, I might pick couple of stories from e-invoicing quarterly and blog about them separately.

References:

• Billentis joins the growing edocr Community
• Review of Bruno’s latest e-invoicing Quarterly…
• Copy of Bruno’s e-invoicing Quarterly
• ExPP Summit #1 - Assembly of e-invoicing community
• ExPP Summit is almost upon us
• Bruno’s ExPP Summit in London - confirming my attendance
• ExPP Summit in London - major annual European e-invoicing/EIPP event
• e-invoicing projections from Billentis
• Bruno Koch - the man behind EXPP events

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Today, I decided to publish key documents related to development of ebdex Document Exchange. You would need to log in to edocr to view these documents. Please note that these documents may not necessarily be the final release. Feel free to use any content as you see fit. Comments are welcome.

Mutual Confidentiality Agreement	Agreement for Preparation of Specification	Software Development Agreement	Confidentiality Agreement

Request for Proposal	User Requirement Specification	Software Design Description	Use Cases

User Acceptance Test Plan	Business Plan	Sales Channel Agreement

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OB10 is no stranger to making classic mistakes with it’s web strategy. How do you manage expectations of local communities whilst pursuing a global strategy? Perhaps the best example is to learn from HSBC - the world’s local bank. At the heart of HSBC web strategy is the corporate site, followed by country specific sites. In the case of OB10, no provision has been made for a corporate website. Here is the home page of UK website, where the company is head quartered.

And here is the US website. Both attempts to retain a similar look and feel, but fail miserably on certain aspects.

Let’s look at the key differences of these two web pages (just the home pages without taking a detail review):

• Menu bar: UK has a symbol for “Home” where as it is spelt out on US home page. US in upper case, UK in lower case other than first letter. “Partners” position swapped. “About” and “About Us”. No “Customers” on US site. “Government” vs. “Public Sector” is a fair change. “Download” missing from US. “Learn More” and “Support” not on UK site. Almost gives the impression that “much more hand-holding” is required in the USA than in the UK.
• Side bar: different information. Like the “meet our customer” section on US site. Prefer “Join Now” message better than “Register”. News and events combined on US and these are separated on the UK.
• Main image: US is much better than the UK.
• “Deloitte Technology Fast50″ is missing from the US site.

Why is there a necessity for country specific websites?

• Terminology, e.g. Government vs. Public Sector
• Legislations and regulations, e.g. VAT
• Language
• Key messages
• Country specific product and service offerings (and markets where applicable).

But why leave out such key messages as “Deloitte”, and news items from the UK site? This mistake could have easily be avoided by providing a corporate website that captured all news and events, and other common marketing messages.

Download page could have been improved significantly by embedding document thumbnails. Of course edocr will be glad to provide this service free of charge, if Jamie wishes to collaborate - be an innovator not a laggard Jamie! 

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If you are thinking of starting or have recently set-up an e-invoicing/EIPP business, ask yourself candidly how do you intend to innovate? I assume you know the fundamental customer pain you are trying to relieve! Just for clarity, this is to replace manual paper based processes with an electronic system that exchange structured documents seamlessly from one system to another. In the past, I spoke about having connectivity up and down the value chain before commencing any development. Part of this is having a sizeable first willing customer who has significant power over its supply chain to allow the technology/product to be tested. I do not see any innovation in this approach - this is all common sense.

So, let’s assume that you spent considerable amount of resources (money and time) developing the first cut of your product and have successfully led trials with your first willing sizeable customer. So what? Given the success, you will no doubt be able to repeat especially as e-invoicing allows your customers to become the unofficial salesforce. All of this is fine - but there is nothing new in this! Yes, you might have reduced the delivery times or supplier enrollment times by a x factor, that is just not enough to make this business take off! So what do you need to do? This is when you need to apply out of the box - or crazy thinking!

I am not going to spell this out to you! But observe what is happening in the enterprise software arena, the Software-as-a-Service revolutionised by Salesforce.com and others, the social networks wave - come up with something that no one has thought of! With this level of innovation, there is a fundamental problem. Yes, you guessed right, the people who use these technologies, i.e. billing clerks and financial directors are not ready. So with this level of innovation, you have the potential to achieve first-mover advantage with the extra trouble of educating the market! So, is this another crazy idea of mine! I do not think so!

Technorati Tags: e-invoicing, eipp, innovation

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Further to my previous post, I believe I cracked the conundrum attached to e-invoicing today! Now, do not get too excited, as I have not decided whether I am going to do anything about it. Most likely, I will park it for the time being. But let’s explore what the problem is in the first place.

What is the biggest problem faced by the e-invoicing (EIPP) market?

I argue that at the very top is the lack of market penetration. Paper documents continue to rule. Some of these are now replaced by e-mail attachments, but this does not solve the fundamental problem of duplication of effort. I do not believe OB10 will be able to crack this market as they think they will, whilst remaining independent. I am not holding much faith on JP Morgan Chase Xign and Amex Harbour Payments as the entities to conquer the world. I strongly believe that a new startup with deep brain storming can crack this market easily. So, who will this be?

I believe I found the answer. It’s a company that is not currently involved in the market place. It’s a company that probably do not even understand what I am talking about let alone what e-invoicing truly means. But they have the potential to revolutionise (not evolutionise) the market and become the dominant player within three years of starting. They alone can make e-invoicing truly happen. And it took me well over 3 years to realise this. And the answer was right in front of my eyes all this time. Man, have I been stupid! edocr actually helped me put the puzzle pieces together. I was on M56 when this realisation kicked in. It was exhilarating…and the speedometer certainly showed my joy - 3 digits!

I already worked out the business plan - real fag packet stuff (never smoked and never will be). The revenue model + product road map + distribution/channels strategy + the lot . Strangely, no real marketing effort will be required. Very simple. Too good to be true! That’s why it is so convincing, and therefore do-able

Now the question is what am I going to do with this knowledge! I have not got a clue…I suppose I could always talk to them. Perhaps…Do I want to? Let me think about this over next few days and weeks…It’s no point waking a sleeping giant without a clear strategy of education, don’t you agree.

Technorati Tags: e-invoicing, EIPP, OB10, JP Morgan Chase, Xign, Harbour Payments, American Express

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Let me first clarify what I meant by e-invoicing here. It is not about scanning and OCRing paper invoices with tight integration of accounts payable systems. It is about connecting disparate finance and procurement systems seamlessly, so that an electronic document (purchase-to-payment and supply-to-cash) from one system flows automatically to another system owned by the same or separate organisation without duplication of effort. At its very basic level, avoiding retyping of data created by the originating system. In my mind, you can only achieve this through a electronic document exchange hub. A prime example is OB10 (in the case of OB10, with limitations).

What I realised over the last few days is that once you bite the e-invoicing (EIPP) bug, you can never really get away from it. What I mean here is that those rare individuals who got the guts or sheer lunacy to setup businesses around the concept of e-invoicing, never really give up. Their first attempt may fail drastically. But they will find a way to have another crack at the market. This is certainly true of Mark Morahan. In Mark’s case, it may well be the third attempt. He may argue that it’s the second attempt as the second attempt was never reached conclusion. In my case, I had my first experience. Obviously, I am not counting my involvement with Mark in 2004, as I was not responsible for setting up Morahan International.

Since ending the development of ebdex Document Exchange at the back-end of 2006, I had numerous offers by technology firms and technologists to develop the platform in exchange for shares, etc. It is hard to ignore such suggestions, but I always remember the words of my mentor, late Gerry Lemberg. If you want to be successful, you need to have the connectivity up and down the value chain. It is not just about funding. You must have access to that large client, who is going to trial it for you. You are not likely to make money out of this, but that is not the point. I believe OB10 had this break with their first client. You also need to have access to your suppliers. Every time I was approached, none of them satisfied this vital requirement. I am also no longer prepared to boot-strap with another e-invoicing startup.

So, it was strange to receive a call from an ex-colleague few days back, who was involved in the e-invoicing startup scene several years ago but left it due to similar problems I described above. How weird! As they say, there is no harm in having a coffee! Give me a call, if you are listening as I no longer have your contact details.

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ebdex was formed on 25th Nov 2004 with the idea of disrupting the EIPP market dominated by Accountis and OB10. To be fair, OB10 and Accountis had very low market penetration then (and same is true now). But they were the best examples an ambitious startup could look upon. Causeway’s Tradex and Burns e-Commerce’s Bex were ignored due to various reasons. Number of other models were studied including Ariba, Xign, Harbour Payments, Esker, etc.

At the time, the idea was to develop a product that harnessed the best of Accountis and OB10. The key ingredient taken from OB10 was the hub based architecture. From Accountis, it was the purchase-to-pay and supply-to-cash documents with built-in BACStel-IP payment engine. Accountis was really helpful in guiding us to understand how to build the ebdex Document Exchange. And they did not even know they were helping us.

But fundamental to all this is Mr. Mark Morahan of Morahan UK Ltd (plus Morahan International, etc). I bought in to Mark’s vision of the electronic document exchange concept whilst completing my Executive MBA at Manchester Business School. Mark’s vision was to develop an exchange (he called this MI Document Network) that was simple to use and understand. The idea was to charge both parties of a transaction (supplier and buyer) 25p with no set-up fees or annual maintenance fees. Quite the opposite to Accountis and OB10, not to mention the rest of the market! However, whilst it sounds great on paper, delivery was quite a different story. And this remains the fundamental problem with the concept of e-invoicing to date!

Having studied the incumbents’ models, ebdex looked at ways to innovate and therefore differentiate from the rest with the idea of achieving a sustainable competitive advantage over time. I believe we found a way, which I have not yet seen in any of the products in the market today. Unfortunately, just like Morahan UK Ltd, the company I outsourced to developed ebdex Document Exchange, Affno, could not deliver the technology! Whilst nothing good can be said about Suren and his Affno, various software associations in Sri Lanka continue to promote their works by granting them prestigious awards! How ironical is that?

At the end of 2006, it was the crunch time for ebdex. Do I accept £250,000 debt finance and continue to burn cash hoping Affno will eventually deliver or cut the losses and walk away? At the end, I took the wise decision and accepted that its time to stop beating a dead horse.

In 2007, I attempted to turnaround ebdex into a niche consultancy, but found this extremely difficult due to the past finances of ebdex. What I should have done was to terminate ebdex at the end of 2006 and create a new entity to exploit advisory opportunities. I was emotionally attached to the ebdex brand - with the hope that one day, I will be able to rebuild ebdex document exchange. Letting go was hard. But recently, someone has forced me to make this decision. So it is time to say good bye to ebdex. In the short term, ebdex will remain as a dormant company.

Looking back, I learnt a tremendous amount from ebdex, especially to do with outsourcing. It’s time to let go…Goodbye ebdex…

Technorati Tags: Mark Morahan, Ariba, Xign, JP Morgan Chase, American Express, Esker, Accountis, OB10, ebdex Document Exchange, ebdex, Rhys Jones, Affno, Suren Kannangara

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Billentis, a company run by highly-respected ExPP evangelist Bruno Koch, is the latest service provider operating in the e-invoicing market to join edocr, your favourite business document interactivity portal. The document below gives an overview of the European e-invoicing and e-billing market:

Following document highlights successful e-invoicing network models:

What’s stopping you taking advantage of edocr free of charge today?  Some of the other’s taking advantage of edocr includes:

• Accountis
• Ariba
• CashTech (part of FundTech and sister company of Accountis)
• Causeway Technologies
• Crossgate Group
• United Data

Technorati Tags: edocr, Billentis, Bruno Koch, e-billing, e-invoicing, EIPP, EBPP, ExPP

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OK, as the title suggests, I thought of capturing the analyst sentiment of FundTech before the acquisition of Accountis. So without further ado, here is a snapshot of analysis from three firms in Jan 2008:

D A Davidson & Co

BUY. Price on 9th Jan $10.60. Price Targets: 12 to 18 months $18, 5 year $40

Verdict: Target market volatility warrants some cautiousness, but risk/reward better than ever. Lowering estimates, maintaining BUY rating.

My Analysis of Analyst: Does not indicate compelling understanding of business proposition. Analysis purely on the back of financials both past and forecasts.

Wedbush Morgan Securities

BUY. Price $10.57 on 16th Jan. Price Targets: 12 months $14.50

Verdict: Downside analysis shows more resiliency than shares have shown; reducing estimates and target but reiterating BUY

My Analysis of Analyst: Mainly on financials but take the trouble to comment on the US economy and the resilience of products to a US economic downturn. No speculation or comments on strategy or growth.

PriceTarget Research

NEUTRAL: Price $10.96 on 27th Jan.

Verdict: Relative to the S&P500 composite, has both growth and value characteristics. Its appeal is likely to be to Capital Gain oriented investors. FundTech is of low investment quality.

My Analysis of Analyst: Quite a lot of information to digest. Need to get some sleep!

Craig-Hallum

BUY. Price $10.87 on 29th Jan. Price Targets: $18

Verdict: SEPA is here. Lowering price target.

My Analysis of Analyst: Obviously published after a key event and therefore carries lot more information than the other 3 analysts in terms of market and economic outlook. Too sleepy to do much more reading

I wish I had more time to go into detail and absorb what the analysts were saying. Above is just to capture some essence of the the conversation taking place. This reminds me of my MBA days when I used to read analyst reports on regular basis. Perhaps, its time to brush up! Good night!

PS: I will revisit these analysts later this month to capture their thoughts! Now wouldn’t it be great if these reports can be found on edocr.

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Whilst I cannot take any credit for the deal between FundTech and Accountis, I feel exhilarated at the service this blog provided in above acquisition. Here are some clues:

• OB10 #8 - Ready to be acquired!
• James Governor # 1 - Learning from a Pro

I actually thought there was a blog post giving more clues, but perhaps not! I believe it all started at a pub near Manchester Airport, where I had the privilege to meet a Representative, who came to know me through this blog. We spoke about the industry, why e-invoicing has not taken off as it should, and the potential acquisition targets in the UK. From the companies we discussed, Accountis had more synergies with FundTech than any other. Some of these being:

• Small company - eager to grow
• Control reside with Founder - makes much easier to deal with one person than a large number including financial backers
• Good technical capability - document exchange plus payments
• Deep understanding of the industry
• Key clients - DHL
• Scalability - ability to scale up quickly with investment
• Cash management - Good utilisation of cash reserves
• Location - significant public sector funding in Wales than in England
• Growth through cross selling - Ability to tap into each others customer base
• New propositions - ability to introduce new services

Since my initial encounter, I had the privilege to extend my relationship with the Representative. I also knows Rhys Jones lot better now than 12 months ago. As I am bound by confidentiality, I have not revealed everything I know. Brace yourselves for another announcement soon from Accountis!

I would like to take this opportunity to convey my best wishes for all involved from both camps. Additionally,

Well done, Rhys! You did it for the second time! What’s next, Sanoodi? If you are interested in learning about Sanoodi, do attend Northern StartUp Mobile 2.0 event on 21st Feb in Manchester eOffice. Could Rhys repeat the same success for edocr? As a start, bit more commitment would be much appreciated by the team!

Over the coming weeks, I will blog more into “what this means for the industry” and “what this means to Accountis”.

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Acquisition further expands Fundtech’s product suite in the corporate banking financial supply chain

JERSEY CITY, N.J., Feb 07, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Fundtech Ltd. (NASDAQ: FNDT), a market leader in global corporate banking solutions, today announced the acquisition of Accountis Ltd. of Bangor, Wales, a leading supplier of electronic invoice presentment and payment (EIPP) systems. Adding EIPP capabilities to Fundtech’s existing product lines of payments, cash management and settlements systems, expands its end-to-end corporate banking systems, and adds to the company’s capabilities in enabling the emerging financial supply chain.

Under the terms of the definitive agreement, Fundtech paid GBP 3.8 million in cash at closing and an additional amount of up to GBP 2.0 million in cash will be paid over the next three years based on the financial performance of Accountis. Accountis reported un-audited revenues of approximately GBP 1.0 million for the 12 months ended December 31, 2007.

Accountis’ electronic financial document exchange and payment solutions automate the way companies interact with one another through their accounts payable and receivables departments. This significantly reduces the time and expense involved with processing, paying and reconciling invoices. The European Association of Corporate Treasurers has shown that e-invoicing is capable of saving corporations up to 80 percent by eliminating the paper invoice processing, printing and postage costs associated with traditional billing. In addition, suppliers are able to receive payments faster.

The Accountis system addresses many of the key barriers to adoption of EIPP systems among corporations:

– Corporations that are suppliers of goods and services are able to easily adopt the Accountis system.

– Accountis’ Enterprise Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable systems seamlessly integrate with existing accounting and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

– The system is highly secure, supporting digital signatures and operating over a secure network.

– Compliance with local tax regulations.

– Corporations can make and receive validated payments through UK bank accounts by means of the Bankers Automated Clearing System (BACS).

Accountis has an established customer base of well-known companies such as: DHL, Virgin Retail, Goodyear Dunlop, Marconi, T-Mobile, Warner Bros., ICICI Bank.

“The acquisition of Accountis is an important step in Fundtech’s growth plan as we leverage new technology to expand our market leadership to encompass the Financial Supply Chain,” said Reuven Ben Menachem, CEO of Fundtech. “We welcome Accountis employees and clients into the Fundtech family and look forward to our mutual success.”

Rhys Jones, Founder and Managing Director of Accountis said, “We are pleased to become part of Fundtech’s global organization and join forces to significantly impact Financial Supply Chain automation. Fundtech’s global sales and support reach will help us capitalize on the early market momentum that Accountis has generated.”

Fundtech management will discuss the Accountis acquisition during its conference call to be held after the release of its Q4 2007 earnings on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 8:30 AM (EST). The conference call numbers are 1-866-800-8051 or 1-617-617-2704 (ask for the Fundtech call).

About Fundtech

With thirteen offices on four continents, Fundtech Ltd is a leading provider of software solutions and services to financial institutions around the world. The company develops and sells a broad array of products across the “financial supply chain” that enable banks to automate their corporate banking activities in order to improve efficiency, while providing their customers flexibility, convenience and control. Fundtech offers products in five business segments: payments, cash management, settlements, financial messaging, and post-trade securities settlement.

Fundtech is a publicly traded company, listed on NASDAQ (FNDT). The company was founded in 1993. For more information, please visit www.fundtech.com.

Forward Looking Statements:

This news release contains forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe-harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements may include, but are not limited to, projections of revenues, income or loss, capital expenditures, plans for growth and future operations, competition and regulation. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which cannot be predicted or quantified. When used in this Release, the words, “estimates,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “plans,” “intends,” and variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Future events and actual results could differ materially from those set forth in, contemplated by or underlying the forward-looking statements. The factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed or identified from time to time in Fundtech’s public filings, including its Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2006, including general economic and market conditions, changes in regulations and taxes and changes in competition in pricing environment. Undo reliance should not be placed on these forward-looking statements, which are applicable only as of the date hereof. Fundtech undertakes no obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that arise after the date of this Release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

SOURCE: Fundtech Ltd.

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Up to now, the e-invoicing market has been dominated by OB10 due to their global expansion strategy, but this is soon to be threatened by a new M&A deal between two players I have come to respect. I cannot go into detail at present without breaching confidentiality agreement, but I consider this as a monumental achievement for the European e-invoicing industry. Stay tuned for more information.

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There’s been some recent discussion at PayStream surrounding EIPP on the receivables side and payment channel issues. The question: Does/will EIPP drive ACH adoption, thus intruding upon middle-tier B2B electronic payments, an arena that credit-card companies have dominated.

ACH payments is a problematic process, and B2B card use mitigates many of these problems - Cards provide instant, although expensive, access to supply chain finance - Card payments are guaranteed by an FI - Cards are always “push” and never “pull” payments, which larger corporations may object to - Cards provide more remitance data - etc. etc. etc.

EIPP offers the opportunity to mitigate the problems with ACH in an efficient matter, but problems remain. The issue of “push” versus “pull” payments, the fact that cash must be available to make the payment. At the same time, many companies are beginning to view EIPP as the killer-app for onboarding ACH and ridding themselves of having to pay fees associated with card-payments. This is particularly important in low-margin industries whose clients would love to use cards because they are small-to-medium sized clients. One particular mentionable of note is that EIPP can solve remitance data problems through meta-data.

So the question that needs to be answered here is - What are the implications for cards and card-issuing FI’s as receivable-centric EIPP models are adopted at an increasing rate? Is there a new B2B card option on the table with a more reasonable fee-structure? Are advantages of cards poorly communicated? Is there more to the story of card FI’s than merely being margin-gobblers are unfair partners? Will this become a larger issue as more card-issuing FI’s jump into the EIPP game?

Thoughts?

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