Innovation in wholesale payments, beyond e-invoicing

I'm expecting that again this year there will be a lot of talk about e-invoicing at EBAday in Vienna, particularly as the expert group and EPC are working to break down the remaining barriers to widespread adoption (such as these).

But beyond just the level playing field for e-invoicing, I'm looking forward to hearing more about what's being done under the umbrella of "e-Sepa", moving beyond just the invoicing component to achieve full automation of the payment value chain.

E-Sepa has been talked about for a number of years (for example this from the ECB's Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell in July 2006), and it's always nice to say of complex, costly and time consuming processes: "wouldn't it be great if all this could be automated?"

But convincing the SME sector across Europe of the benefits to them specifically (and not just to the environment, or general industrial efficiency) is going to be a challenging task, requiring much more carrot than stick.