Italian finance industry sustains the digitalisation of the public administration–business–citizen relationship: Electronic invoicing and the CBILL Service

For many years, the Italian financial market has understood that the valorisation of cooperative activities is a keystone for improving individual intermediaries’ competitive offerings to their clients (corporate and retail) through shared standard infrastructure and strategic lines. The Italian finance industry is actively contributing to the process of digitalising the nation, fulfilling the needs of corporates, citizens and the Public Administration (PA), through the enhancement of its best practices. Consorzio CBI’s (http://www.cbi-org.eu) positive experience is instructive for its effective management of financial exchange and flow of information among corporates, citizens and the PA, making collection and payment, reconciliation and document management processes more efficient from an economic and organisational viewpoint. Consorzio CBI membership includes approximately 580 financial institutions, including Poste Italiane and electronic money institutions, which represent 88.6 per cent of payment service providers and 100 per cent of banks offering competitive corporate banking services to more than 980,000 corporates. It has played a fundamental role in defining the electronic invoice, one of the three priorities of the Italian Digital Agenda. The year 2014 will be remembered as the year when the e-invoice began to be used in Italy, as a result of actions taken by Consorzio CBI. This paper presents the experience of the Italian finance industry during the creation of standards and services in support of the de­materialisation and optimisation of the financial value chain and electronic bill presentment and payment services. This paper concludes with a brief note on mobile services and future prospects.