The new offering, part of Burns' Financial Exchange Service (FES) enables organisations to process and route electronic payment instructions to their domestic and international banking partners. The remittance advice delivery service will allow customers to outsource all their remittance document delivery directly to their bank, for processing via the FES, says the company. An alternative, bank-independent version of the service, has been launched over the Burns Business Exchange (beX) electronic trading service.

Electronic remittances help to streamline payment queries and reduce outstanding reconciliation issues between corporates and their suppliers.

Eliot Heilpern, director of business development - payment solutions at Burns e-Commerce Solutions, comments: "We can now enable banks to help their customers address a number of key business process issues typical in the buyer/supplier relationship. Many suppliers have problems around issues relating to insufficient information about payments received, or at worst, they seek compensation for the receipt of late payments."

Rather than simply undertaking the settlement activity, the service enables banks to become part of a customer's value chain and transaction flow at every stage of the payment process, says Heilpern, closing the gap in the bank's offerings to the corporate market.

The FES remittances, which can comply with the corporate styles and branding of either the bank or its customer, are either delivered to the supplier over a secure Web site, by email, or where the supplier does not have PC access, by fax or post. Customers have the ability to view and monitor the progress of remittances that are pending distribution or have already been sent to the suppliers.

Burns says a leading electronics companies has already gone live with the remittance service which is being rolled out to its international supplier community.