Spanish government launches e-billing initiative

The Spanish government's department for telecommunications and the information society has launched an initiative to support the adoption of electronic billing by businesses and citizens. A new internet portal has been launched at www.lafacturaelectronica.es to raise awareness of the advantages of online billing. The EUR 550,000 programme is co-financed by Europe's FEDER regional development fund. Information on e-billing will be sent to over 80,000 Spanish firms, in addition to the running of an internet advertising campaign. Agreements have been reached with e-billing solution providers for them to offer discounts on their products and services to businesses ready to implement e-billing by March 2011. The companies that were selected in an open tender were Telefonica Soluciones, Camerfirma, Sage, Edicom, Pixelware, Seres, Eadtrust, Zerocoma, Indra Sistemas and Microsoft. Collaboration agreements were also signed with water, electricity, gas and telecom utilities to provide their customers with incentives to use e-billing. The selected companies are Repsol, Iberdrola, Gas Nautural Fenosa, Orange, Ono, Vodafone, Cepsa and Telefonica. According to the national statisitics institute, off the 45 percent of Spanish businesses with internet connections which use B2B electronic data transmission, 51.2 percent receive e-bills and 25.1 percent send them.