e-Invoicing
Invoice fraud, IBAN manipulation and mismatched VAT numbers cost European businesses billions every year. Together with KVK, the Belastingdienst, Unifiedpost and Visma Yuki, Credenco has built — and interoperability-tested — a verifiable e-invoicing stack. Every invoice is cryptographically bound to its sender, its VAT registration and its IBAN, and travels directly between business wallets. No PDFs, no spoofed headers, no guesswork.
The Challenge
Today's e-invoicing is only half-digital. Invoices move as PDFs or structured XML via email and ERP systems, but the identity of the sender is never cryptographically proven. The receiver has to cross-check the supplier's KVK number, VAT registration and IBAN against external registers — or skip the check entirely.
- Spoofed sender details and swapped IBANs are a common fraud vector.
- VAT numbers and Chamber of Commerce registrations are verified manually, if at all.
- Every country, platform and ERP speaks a slightly different dialect of the same standard.
The Dutch — and European — answer is structured, verifiable invoicing: invoices with a cryptographic proof of who is sending them, issued against the same authoritative sources that register the sender's legal existence.
The Solution
The FIDES Labs Small Scale Pilot e-Invoicing was set up to prove the concept end-to-end, in two phases.
Part 1 — Organizational wallets & credentials. Credenco delivered a Business Wallet, Issuer Portal and Verifier Portal for the four participating legal entities. KVK issued the Chamber of Commerce number and RSIN as verifiable credentials. The Belastingdienst issued the VAT number and tax address. All parties were onboarded onto the EBSI trust registry, and interoperability was demonstrated with a second wallet provider.
Part 2 — FIDES Blue Pages. A decentralised business catalogue built on top of the wallets. Organisations can look up verifiable information about counterparties — KVK number, VAT, IBAN, addresses — using Web and EBSI crawlers that read Linked Verifiable Presentations from each legal entity's DID. Think of it as a decentralised "Google for business identity", without a central database.
On top of this stack sits the e-Invoice credential: a verifiable credential that wraps the invoice payload, links it to the sender's KVK / VAT / IBAN credentials and carries optional evidence documents. Invoices are sent via a dedicated Send Invoice API and land in the receiver's wallet inbox, with OpenID4VP-based authorisation.
Credenco's Role
Credenco is the technical lead and wallet provider across both phases of the pilot. The work covers:
- Business Wallet — for all participating legal entities, with DID management (did:web, did:ebsi) and Linked Verifiable Presentations.
- Issuer Portals — for KVK (CoCnr, RSIN) and the Belastingdienst (VAT, tax address), including issuing and revocation flows.
- Verifier Portal — validates credentials against trusted issuers and schemas registered on EBSI.
- FIDES Blue Pages — decentralised business catalogue with admin tooling, Web DID and EBSI crawlers, API key management and OpenID4VP admin login.
- e-Invoice credential + Send Invoice API — the wrapper and transport layer that binds the invoice to its sender's verified identity.
- Interoperability testing — live testing with Sphereon and other DIIP-conformant wallets.
At a glance
Sector
Finance · B2B
Initiative
FIDES Labs — Small Scale Pilot
Stakeholders
KVK · Belastingdienst · Unifiedpost · Visma Yuki
Standards
W3C VC · OID4VCI · OID4VP · DIIP v5
Status
Part 1 & 2 delivered · pilot live
What's on a verifiable invoice
A verifiable e-invoice is not a PDF — it is a structured credential that bundles the invoice payload with the sender's authoritative identity credentials. Every data point below is issued, signed and independently verifiable.
Issued by KVK
Chamber of Commerce number (CoCnr)
Issued by KVK
RSIN
Issued by Belastingdienst
VAT number
Issued by Belastingdienst
Tax address
Issued by Bank
IBAN
Issued by Sender
e-Invoice credential (with evidence documents)
Impact
What changes when invoices become verifiable credentials instead of signed PDFs.
No more fake invoices
Every invoice carries a cryptographic signature linked to credentials issued by KVK, Belastingdienst and the sender's bank. Spoofed sender details and manipulated IBANs become detectable instantly.
Instant validation
Receivers validate the supplier's legal identity, VAT number and IBAN in a single verification — no manual cross-checks against external registers.
Interoperable by design
Built on open standards (W3C VC, OID4VCI, OID4VP) and successfully interoperability-tested with other wallet providers — e-invoices flow across wallet ecosystems.
Foundation for Peppol & EU eIDAS 2.0
Delivers a verifiable-credentials layer on top of Peppol-style invoicing, aligned with the upcoming EU Digital Identity Wallet and mandatory e-invoicing directives.
Practical Example
A supplier sends an invoice to a customer. Both work in their own ERP, connected to their Business Wallet. The invoice travels as a verifiable credential — not as a PDF.
1. Sender
Supplier
From the ERP, the invoice is passed to the Business Wallet. The wallet wraps it in an e-Invoice credential, signed and linked to the sender's KVK, VAT and IBAN credentials.
2. Transport
Send Invoice API
The credential is delivered directly to the receiver's wallet inbox. OpenID4VP authorises the transfer — no shared mailboxes, no file attachments.
3. Receiver
Customer ERP
The receiving wallet verifies sender identity, VAT number and IBAN against the trusted issuers on EBSI. The invoice enters the ERP pre-verified — ready for straight-through processing.
Future Outlook
Mandatory e-invoicing is coming: most EU member states require structured invoicing from 2026 — and the European Digital Identity Wallet is arriving in parallel. The FIDES Labs pilot provides the missing link: invoices that are not just structured, but verifiable. As more authorities — banks, insurers, government agencies — issue credentials and FIDES Blue Pages grows, entire finance stacks (from procurement to payment) will shift from manual verification to cryptographic trust. That is the foundation for automated, fraud-resistant B2B finance at European scale.