Thursday 5th September, 2013

In a conversation I had with Luke McKeever, CEO OB10 earlier this year I questioned him about the future of e-invoicing and how the deep benefits it can provide to organisations globally could shape or drive our relationships with the banks in the future. And it would seem that that future is already upon us with the news yesterday that Tungsten Corporation PLC, founded last year by Edmund Truell (founder of private equity house Duke Street Capital) is set to aquire OB10 for £99m.

In proposals for a reverse takeover of OB10, Tungsden is also looking to do the same with the UK arm of First International Bank of Israel (giving the group a UK banking license). Tungsten is looking to raise £160 million to fund the takeovers and part of the package also includes a five year rolling licence with @UK PLC which will add its spend analytic software to the data traffic across the OB10 network.

Truell has explained that his vision is to provide a fully authorised UK bank which sits in the middle of the flow of billions across the global network. In doing so, the aim is to provide organisations with access to fast and efficient invoice settlement with TungstenAnalytics set to transform the supply chain finance model, no longer requiring third party partners or capital.

Alongside this, TungsdenAnalytics will deliver significant line level data capturing an organisation's invoicing long tail - which again will feed directly into effective and transparent spend analytics.

Co-founded in 2000 by Stefan Foryszewski, former head of Data Delivery at Visa International and one of APNs AP awards judges this year, OB10 processes more than £100bn transactions a year. Tungsten will be led by Edmund Truell as Group CEO and supported by Luke Mckeever, Jeffery Belkin and Philip Ashdown.