Even then, there's a catch, said Lin: "Banks that automate labor-intensive manual payments systems face the stigma of restructuring and reorganizing their staff. Also, banks charge high rates for manual processes and customers might expect a reduction in charges with automation, so banks might see this as cannibalization."

Lack of standards

BasWare also offers an end-to-end solution for the purchase-to-pay process. The customer benefits from a unified solution from purchasing through e-invoicing or scanning to matching and, if necessary, state-of-the-art invoice processing. The systems can be integrated with any ERP or finance system in the market, said Jari Tavi, BasWare's CTO.

"The lack of global standards (or obsolete and inadequate standards) means governments cannot endorse electronic trade sufficiently", said Tavi. "The most promising standard, introduced by Oasis, is UBL 2.0, which is based on XML and defines e-commerce messages related to catalogs, purchase orders, shipping and e-invoicing."

The Nordic region of Europe introduced a harmonized payment infrastructure that halved the cost of payment transactions from two percent to one percent in 10 years, said Tavi.