Global Spotlight: Mexico, Brazil & Argentina

Mexico, Brazil and Argentina have teamed up to launch a pilot program that strengthens cooperation between the countries in exchanging digital invoices. The nations are already situated in one of the world’s highest-ranked continents when it comes to digital billing.

But the alliance goes beyond promoting the use of e-invoices. Mexico, Brazil and Argentina are going one step further to realizing one of the largest benefits of e-billing: easier cross-border trade.

As reported in E-Invoicing Platform last week (Aug. 19), the Tax Administration Service of Mexico, the Federal Revenue of Brazil and the Federal Public Revenue Administration of Argentina recently met to develop and initiate the Electronic Invoice Pilot Program for International Trade.

Together, the nations are looking to establish an information platform that facilitates government-compliant invoices between the participating players. According to reports, the nations are working on a model of the International Electronic Invoice (FEI), which includes a standard set of data in each bill.

It’s a project that includes the development of software, to be spearheaded by the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations, that acts as a central system through which buyers and suppliers send and receive invoices. Reports said the countries are hoping to make federal procurement practices easy enough to cross over national borders, allowing for suppliers to easily get paid from buyers outside their own country.

Beyond A Digital Bill

Reports note that the new venture includes two of Latin America’s three leading e-invoice players: Mexico and Brazil. “The three tax initiating administrations are unique sponsoring agencies, because all three of them have successful[ly] implemented the massive use of compliant electronic invoicing,” E-Invoicing Platform reported.

According to research from the Accounts Payable Network published earlier this year, Mexico, Brazil and Chile are leading the world’s efforts in e-invoice adoption, all implementing government mandates for the technology by public entities by the end of the year. Argentina is following suit with the development of new accounts receivable legislation, too.

Mexico alone is expecting up to a 25 percent increase in the volume of e-invoices sent this year. And while the EU and U.S. are working towards their own e-invoicing initiatives, these leading economies have yet to reach the digital billing levels seen among some of their peers in South America.

Analysts have recognized why some jurisdictions are more successful at adopting e-invoicing practices than others. In Latin America, researchers concluded that the region is a world leader in this space thanks to governments’ use of e-billing to boost revenue, business efficiency and overall work to grow national economies.

Now, industry experts say Latin America is further advancing its position as the globe’s e-invoicing king with its new cross-border project, and as partners, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina are giving the region a leg-up on the estimated $50 trillion worth of B2B cross-border commerce that will flow by the end of the decade.

Details of the new initiative are scarce, and it is still in the planning phases. It is unclear when a multinational e-invoicing procurement portal would launch, and reports did not indicate how invoices would get reconciled in the appropriate domestic currency.

But reports did say that the three partners are eventually looking to bring on other countries to the exchange — including, possibly, the U.S. and Canada. If they can bring the successes they’ve had in implementing e-invoicing within their own nations to their venture of facilitating cross-border billing, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina could be on the cusp of launching one of the world’s most efficient mechanisms for multinational B2B trade.