Minutes of UBL face-to-face meeting, Milan, September 29 - October 02, 2025
Participation
- Todd Albers
- Kenneth Bengtsson (chair)
- Peter Borresen
- Andrea Caccia
- Paul Donohoe
- Kees Duvekot
- Sander Fieten
- Ken Holman
- Wim Kok
- Ole Madsen
- Natalie Muric
- Svante Schubert
- Dragos Stoica
Welcome and Opening Remarks
The meeting opened with a welcome from Kenneth, who walked participants through the agenda and outlined the expected outcomes for the 4-day F2F meeting.
Subcommittee Updates
Payments and Finance Subcommittee
The Payfin SC has prepared a discussion on additional elements required to support stablecoins and other crypto-based payment instruments in PaymentMeans. This is based on Todd's analysis of U.S. market requirements. Andrea noted that similar developments are underway in Europe, including the Digital Euro initiative, and that comparing requirements across markets could be a valuable opportunity to inform ISO work in this area.
The stablecoin discussion is scheduled for the agenda for September 30.
Pre-award Subcommittee
The SC is awaiting feedback from other subcommittees regarding definitions and usage of Party components, see: https://groups.oasis-open.org/discussion/ubl-24-party-definitionsxlsx
Tickets to capture input and monitor progress have been created:
Natalie has begun reviewing the pre-award prose specification text.
Transportation Subcommittee
Two major stakeholder groups are currently awaiting UBL support: eFTI and waste movement tracking.
The need for a new EnergyConsumptionAllocation ABIE was agreed (see: https://issues.oasis-open.org/browse/UBL-373). Kenneth will draft a proposal for the new ABIE and Peter will propose where in the existing model the ABIE will be used.
Post-award Subcommittee
A new draft InvoiceResponse document type has been included in UBL 2.5 CSD 01 and Public Review. The document is based on the functionality of ApplicationResponse and DocumentStatus, as used in Peppol and DBNAlliance.
UBL certification program
Andrea gave a recap of the discussions from the previous face-to-face meeting (see attached PPT). The TC discussed the value and scope of a UBL certification program, and it was agreed to scope the certification program to specify rules for how to test UBL document instances, both syntax and semantics, as well as provide guidance for how to write customization profile specification and test whether they are UBL conformant.
The following were identified to improve the UBL specification in general and to facilitate the implementation of a certification program:
- Update Section 7 (Conformance) to explicitly differentiate:
- 7.1: Syntactical conformance (current clause, syntactical conformance)
- 7.2: New clause for semantic conformance
- 7.3: Digital signature conformance (currently 7.2)
- Kenneth will draft a proposal for the new 7.2
- Improve guidance on the use of CustomizationID and ProfileID:
- CustomizationID: refers to profiling of the document model
- ProfileID: refers to profiling of the business process
- It's necessary to improve Appendix B.4 (UBL Customization) to better explain what UBL customizations are, how they relate to conformance, and how they are used in practice.
- Kenneth will work on a proposal
To support this work, the TC agreed to constitute a new UBL Conformance and Certification Subcommittee:
- Andrea volunteered to chair the SC, preferably with a co-chair.
- Wim will explore interest within Logius to participate and possibly co-chair.
- Kenneth will prepare a first draft of the SC charter and share it with Andrea, Wim, Sander, Kees, and Svante for review and finalization before presenting it to the TC.
Payment means for crypto and stablecoins
Todd presented a proposal for expanding the PaymentMeans ABIE to support stablecoins, cryptocurrencies, and other alternative payment methods.
The TC agreed to introduce the following new elements:
- In cac:PaymentMeans:
- cbc:PaymentRailID
- cbc:PaymentPlatformID
- In cac:FinancialAccount:
These changes were applied and the existing ticket was updated (see: https://issues.oasis-open.org/browse/UBL-449).
UBL awareness
Peter gave a presentation highlighting that while UBL is widely recognized in areas such as invoicing and public procurement, it needs more exposure in sectors like transportation. The TC then discussed how to raise awareness of UBL more broadly:
- Todd posed the question: How do we bridge supply chains to payments?
- Ken Holman noted that outreach should target software vendors rather than end users.
The TC discussed whether OASIS could support broader communication efforts:
- "Evangelizing" UBL in underrepresented sectors (such as transport) could add value for existing OASIS members such as Microsoft, Google, SAP, U.S. DoD, etc.
- It may also help attract new members.
- The idea of OASIS organizing a workshop with software vendors, possibly in connection with a future TC F2F meeting, was raised.
Agreed:
- Kenneth will contact OASIS to set up a meeting with OASIS, Peter, and Todd to explore this further.
- Additionally, Peter will draft a sales/marketing letter aimed at industry organizations to raise awareness and promote the use of UBL at relevant events.
JSON syntax binding
The TC reviewed section by section the draft JSON syntax specification that had been circulated in advance (see: https://groups.oasis-open.org/discussion/draft-json-syntax-binding-for-review). The following was noted:
- Section 8, controlled vocabularies: It was discussed and agreed that the choice of controlled vocabularies is the responsibility of the implementing community, not the UBL specification. Kenneth will revise this section.
- Section 9.1, schema identification: The draft specified the use of the $schema property at the root of each instance to indicate the governing schema. The TC discussed potential confusion as $schema is also used within JSON schemas themselves. It was agreed to explore the use of $id within the schemas and clarify how document instances should reference the applicable schema.
- Section 14, conformance: It was agreed to add a new Section 14.2 on semantic conformance.
UBL 2.5 status, timeline, and PRD01 comments review
The TC reviewed the current roadmap toward UBL 2.5 standardization:
- Committee Specification Draft 01, September 2025 (completed)
- Committee Specification Draft 02, October 2025
- Committee Specification 01, December 2025
- OASIS Standard, April 2026
It was agreed to continue following this timeline.
Face-to-face meeting schedule
The TC agreed to hold the next face-to-face meeting in the UAE, possibly the week before the Exchange Summit. The Exchange Summit is currently scheduled during the Easter holidays, which present challenges for some TC members.
Kenneth will reach out to the Exchange Summit organizers to see if any positive synergies to be leveraged.
Jira tickets
The TC resolved and closed the following tickets:
The following tickets were worked on but still need resolution:
Closing remarks and any other business
The TC discussed the publishing of UBL 2.5 and agreed to resume efforts for publising a multipart specification:
- Ken and Kees will work on updating the publishing environment to support multipart output.
- Kenneth will finalize the proposal for which parts to include in the multipart structure.
- The JSON syntax specification (Kenneth) and updated pre-award prose (Natalie) will be provided in Word format.
- Ken will handle conversion to DocBook format.
The TC expressed its gratefulness to everyone at the Digital B2B Observatory at the Politecnico di Milano, both for the space and for the spirit of collaboration and enthusiasm that surrounded us throughout the week. This face-to-face meeting would not have been the same without the generous welcome and support.
/Kenneth
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