Peppol

Peppol follows a four-corner model: the supplier and the buyer each connect through a Peppol-accredited service provider of their own choice, and the two providers exchange the document, as OpenPeppol describes. In a closed network both sides would need the same provider. The providers run access points, web services that deliver documents directly from sender to receiver with the eDelivery AS4 protocol over TLS.

Two directories tell an access point where to send a document. The Service Metadata Publisher (SMP) holds each participant's technical details, including its access point, and the central Service Metadata Locator (SML), operated by OpenPeppol, lists the participants, the document standards they accept and their SMP, according to the Wikipedia article on Peppol. The invoice format on the network is Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, which follows the European standard EN 16931.

OpenPeppol is a non-profit international association under Belgian law with its seat in Brussels. It took over the network in 2012 from an EU-funded project that began in 2008. Each country can have a Peppol Authority that contracts the service providers there. In Germany this is the Koordinierungsstelle für IT-Standards (KoSIT), acting for the IT-Planungsrat of the federal and state governments, as its Peppol page states (in German). Wikipedia counts more than eight million participant organizations in 123 countries.

The federal government has received e-invoices over Peppol since 2019 and is by far the largest receiver of Peppol invoices in Germany, according to KoSIT. Invoices to public bodies use the XRechnung standard and need a Leitweg-ID in addition to the Peppol ID. For invoices between businesses, Germany allows Peppol but does not require it: under the German e-invoicing mandate the parties may also use email, EDI or a portal. Belgium took the other route and made Peppol e-invoicing between businesses mandatory from January 1, 2026.

A Peppol BIS invoice carries a group of payment instructions: the means of payment, the payee's account, usually an IBAN, and a remittance reference that links the payment to the invoice. Software at the buyer can create the SEPA transfer from these fields, and the seller can match the money by the reference. The name behind the IBAN is checked by verification of payee before the transfer leaves, and SEPA Request-to-Pay is the payments-side message for asking a payer to pay on a due date.

Finance Loop is the meeting place for the banks, payment institutions and fintechs that turn e-invoice data into payments. It connects the finance, IT and AI communities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with events in Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg.

Finance Loop supports When Banks Say 'No', a half-day payments seminar in Frankfurt for compliance, treasury, finance, export and legal teams on blocked payments, de-risking and sanctions. Finance Loop is also media partner of Capital & Code, a Frankfurt conference whose audience includes corporate treasurers who manage liquidity and risk.

Peppol is a network and set of specifications for exchanging e-invoices and other procurement documents. Companies and public bodies connect through accredited service providers and can then exchange documents with every other participant.

An access point is the service a Peppol provider runs to send and receive documents for its customers. It looks up the receiver's access point in the SMP and SML and delivers the document over the AS4 protocol.

No. Peppol is one allowed channel for e-invoices between businesses. The federal government receives e-invoices over Peppol, and Belgium has made Peppol mandatory for invoices between businesses.

OpenPeppol, a non-profit association under Belgian law in Brussels. National Peppol Authorities, in Germany KoSIT, contract the service providers in their country.