Press Release

European Commission Approves Referencing of OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) Standard

19 November 2014–The OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) Standard, version 2.1, has been designated by the European Commission as one of the first consortium standards officially eligible for referencing in tenders from public administrations. UBL is a versatile electronic format for defining and exchanging a wide range of business transaction documents, particularly in international supply chain processes. UBL joins the ranks of XML, DNSSEC, and Internet Protocol v6 in receiving this special EU designation following the positive advice of the Multi-Stakeholder Platform on ICT Standardization.

UBL is used by nations around the world for implementing cross-border transactions related to sourcing (e.g. tendering and catalogues), procurement (e.g. ordering and electronic invoicing), replenishment (e.g. managed inventory) and transportation (e.g. waybills, forwarding and status). The standard provides the foundation for successful European public procurement frameworks including EHF (Norway), Svefaktura (Sweden), OIOUBL (Denmark), ePrior (European Commission DIGIT), and PEPPOL, a growing pan-European procurement infrastructure whose participants currently include government agencies from Austria, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, and Sweden.

“The Danish government was proud to nominate UBL for the Commission’s recognition,” said Ole Madsen, IT Architect for the Danish Finance Ministry’s Agency for Digitisation, which has been a long-time participant in the development of the OASIS standard. “Denmark began adopting UBL for all public sector invoicing in 2005. The transition continues to save us more than 100 million euros in costs annually.”

“OASIS is honored that UBL was chosen to receive this special recognition in European e-Government,” said Laurent Liscia, CEO of OASIS. “We look forward to continued productive collaboration with the European Commission’s directorates and agencies and with the EU Member States.”

Members of the OASIS UBL Technical Committee span the globe, including representatives of Boeing, Danish Ministry of Finance, Italian National Agency for New Technologies (ENEA), Japan’s Nomura Research Institute, NEC, Norway’s Difi-Agency for Public Management and eGovernment, Swedish Association of Local Authorities & Regions, U.S. Department of Defense, and others.

Additional information:
OASIS UBL Technical Committee

UBL 2.1 OASIS Standard

About OASIS:

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a non-profit, international consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information society. OASIS promotes industry consensus and produces worldwide standards for business transactions, IoT, cloud computing, security, privacy, content technologies, emergency management, and other applications. OASIS open standards offer the potential to lower cost, stimulate innovation, grow global markets, and protect the right of free choice of technology. OASIS members broadly represent the marketplace of public and private sector technology leaders, users and influencers. The consortium has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 65+ countries. http://www.oasis-open.org.

Press contact: Carol Geyer, OASIS Senior Director, carol.geyer@oasis-open.org, +1.941.284.0403