Four private companies -- Clear (formerly ClearTax), Cygnet Infotech, E&Y and IRIS Business Ltd have been empaneled by GSTN for providing these e-invoice registration services to all GST taxpayers of the country, GSTN said in a statement.

Fintech software as a service (SaaS) firm Clear said it has launched e-invoice registration service after it has received the license.  GST Council had in 2021 allowed private participation in this segment. The government's idea is to strike partnerships between GSTN and industry players to offer more e-invoice registration portals. NIC is already offering this service.

Taxpayers now have a choice of more than one invoice registration portal, which they can use to register their e-invoices, GSTN said in an update on its protal. This adds significant capacity for e-invoice generation for business to business transactions.

With the launch of invoice registration portal services by private players, India has a new operating model that will be a role model for every developing nation, Clear said in a statement. Commerce and trade in India should benefit dramatically from the increased trust built on top of real time, fully reconciled, traceable data systems that acts as a support system for payments, shipments, invoices, financing, taxes and withholdings, the Clear statement said.

 "This infrastructure will be largely digital and therefore be affordable, scalable, modern, secure and pervasive at the same time," the statement said quoting Archit Gupta, founder and chief executive officer of Clear.