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12/07/2026 12:19 pm
TL;DR: The EU e-invoicing directive requires public authorities to accept and process structured electronic invoices, while the VAT Directive already expects authenticity of origin and integrity of content, according to GlobalSign. For identity and fraud teams, the governance challenge is not invoice digitisation itself but proving issuer identity and preserving content integrity across automated workflows.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by GlobalSign: an analysis of the EU e-invoicing directive and its implications for authenticity and integrity
By the numbers:
- 2018 saw 3,280 invoice and bank mandate scam cases involving businesses.
- Around £29.6 million of the money lost to invoice fraud was recovered.
Questions worth separating out
Q: What breaks when invoice authenticity controls are missing?
A: Without authenticity controls, organisations can accept invoices that look legitimate but were not issued by the real supplier or were altered after creation.
Q: Why do structured e-invoices still need strong provenance controls?
A: Structured formats improve processing, but they do not prove who created the invoice or whether the content was changed later.
Q: How can finance teams know invoice integrity controls are working?
A: Look for low rates of manual corrections, a small number of approved override paths, and clear evidence that signature validation and issuer verification happen before payment approval.
Practitioner guidance
- Map invoice provenance controls to payment risk Identify where issuer identity, document integrity, and bank detail changes are validated today.
- Standardise structured invoice intake Use one validated intake path for structured e-invoices and isolate conversion from unstructured formats into a controlled staging step.
- Bind signatures to invoice generation workflows Apply advanced electronic signatures at the point of invoice creation so authenticity of origin and integrity of content are preserved before transmission.
What's in the full article
GlobalSign's full article covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- How the EU standard maps to public sector acceptance requirements across member states and cross-border suppliers
- Where advanced electronic signatures fit into invoice generation workflows and what that means for PKI governance
- Which invoice formats qualify as valid e-invoices and how organisations can test interoperability before rollout
- Why GlobalSign's document signing service is positioned for integration into existing invoicing systems
👉 Read GlobalSign's analysis of the EU e-invoicing directive and invoice authenticity →
EU e-invoicing directive: what it means for authenticity controls?
Explore further
12/07/2026 12:33 pm
Invoice governance is now an identity problem, not just a compliance problem. The directive makes issuer authenticity and content integrity operational requirements, which pushes invoice handling into the same trust domain as identity verification and digital signatures. When a document can trigger payment, the identity of the sender and the immutability of the record become security controls, not administrative details. Practitioners should treat invoice provenance as a governed trust chain.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who is accountable when a fraudulent e-invoice is paid?
A: Accountability usually spans procurement, finance, and security because the failure often sits between document intake, identity verification, and payment execution. Under the EU model, suppliers to public authorities also need to ensure their invoices meet the required standards. The organisation that pays should own the control chain, not assume the supplier or system did.
👉 Read our full editorial: EU e-invoicing directive shifts invoice authenticity governance
