Latest news with #StateTreasury
Finextra
09-06-2025
- Business
- Finextra
The huge-savings curse. Part II (e-invoicing): By Bo Harald
Like in e- and mobile banking the e-invoicing as an interconnecting-customers service was not started off as a good-for-society at large program – but for customer convenience. I still remember how customers complained that we had outsourced the keying in on ever-growing lengths of reference numbers and other payment data from branch and back-office staff to them. And then we charged a monthly fee for e-banking from the outset in the 80s (lifesaver for e-banking upgrade investments). The cost savings from not having to use time on travels to branches or mail invoices was not in the calculations. Direct debit never became – despite much pushing – a popular alternative. So – after some pondering in the mid-90s (sorry about the bragging) – we introduced e-invoicing where the payment proposal could be approved with one click in home- and SME-banking. It was also possible to make a standing order – that routine invoices where paid automatically – and also set €-limits for automated bill payments. Fine – but a huge eye-opener arrived when the State Treasury presented a calculation that cost savings for incoming invoices. Paper or PDF was estimated to cost 30€ (costs much higher in eg Electrolux and Nokia) and eInvoice 11€ giving a saving potential of150m€/year. The Municipal Association arrived at the same 150m€/year. On European level 21,6 bn€ tax payer's money could be saved. And this was only for purchase invoices -and in the pre-automation stage. The next target was to get down to an estimated 1€/invoice with full automation. Then the Finnish Federation of Industries came up with their own estimate for purchase invoices – 2,8 bn€/year… So a total 3bn equalling 220 EU-billions… Add to that time saved at home, CO2 effects, lower fraud rates, less grey economy effects and so many opportunities to automate all sorts of processes with rich structured data. Made us feel really important and the EU commission invited me to become chairman for the EU Expert Group and eInvoicing. The first reactions here as well – it cannot be true! As if the savings would not be big enough… Slowish uptake during the first 5 years - even if banks had ready simple e-banking-integrated solutions for sending and receiving e-invoices (also as files). How could this be? Of course, a saving near 1% of turnover is small in a small enterprise. And accounting firms did not – oddly enough – start to promote e-invoicing properly. And the cost of old manual paper and PDF-practises was not shown – while e-invoicing operators naturally had to charge for their services. Invoice receivers should have used their rights and upfront have set deadlines for or at least charge for incoming papers and pictures. What did we learn? That these kinds of productivity leaps cannot wait for slowly fading change resistance. If enterprise organisations cannot drive the change with information about the big picture and demanding more and better digital – then it is up to the politicians. Even if some loud voters will not like it.
Business Recorder
23-04-2025
- Business
- Business Recorder
Vietnam raises $322 million in government bond auction
HANOI: Vietnam's State Treasury raised 8.36 trillion dong ($322 million) in a government bond auction on Wednesday, down from $446 million raised last week. The uptake was also lower, with 66.8% of the bonds on offer sold according to a Hanoi Stock Exchange filing, compared with 82.7% at last week's auction. The auction took total government bond sales so far this year to 130.8 trillion dong, according to exchange data. Vietnam uses proceeds from bond sales mainly to fund its public investments, among the key drivers of its economic growth. At Wednesday's auction, the treasury sold all of the 2 trillion dong of 5-year bonds and all of the 1 trillion dong of 15-year bonds offered, with coupons of 2.26% and 3.10%, respectively. Vietnam raises $323mn in govt bond auction, filing shows It also sold 5.3 trillion dong out of 9 trillion dong of 10-year bonds at a coupon of 3.03%, and just 52 billion dong out of 500 billion dong of 30-year bonds at a coupon of 3.28%. On the corporate side, Vietnamese companies have raised 41.6 trillion dong via bonds in the year to April 18, according to bond market association data. The value of corporate bonds maturing in the remainder of 2025 is 166 trillion dong, 53.5% of which are in the real estate sector and 24.2% for the banking sector, the data showed.
Egypt Today
23-02-2025
- Politics
- Egypt Today
Egypt's House approves moral, ethical compensation for wrongful pretrial detention
CAIRO – 23 February 2025: The Egyptian House of Representatives (the lower house of parliament) led by Speaker Hanafi Gebali, on Sunday, approved moral and ethical compensation for wrongful pretrial detention during its general session tomorrow, Sunday, as part of the draft Criminal Procedures Law. The newly-approved amendments to the law require the Public Prosecution to publish, at the government's expense, every final ruling that acquits a person previously detained in pretrial detention, as well as every order stating there is no reason to file a criminal case against them. This will be done in two widely circulated daily newspapers, aiming to provide moral compensation for the harm caused by wrongful pretrial detention. Article 523 of the draft law stipulates that anyone detained in pretrial detention is entitled to compensation under the following conditions: · If the crime is punishable by a fine or a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for less than one year, and the accused has a fixed and known residence in Egypt. · If a final order is issued stating there is no reason to file a criminal case due to the invalidity of the incident. · If a final judgment acquits the person of all charges based on the fact that the incident is not punishable, is incorrect, or for any other reasons other than invalidity, doubts about the validity of the accusation, or reasons for permission, exemption from punishment, pardon, or abstention from responsibility. In all cases, the State Treasury will bear the compensation costs. However, the person seeking compensation must not have been detained in pretrial detention or served a custodial sentence pending the case or other cases for a period equal to or longer than the period of pretrial detention or sentence for which compensation is being requested.
