Wal-Mart's UK subsidiary Asda has switched to a Web-based Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) solution from Kewill and Cyclone Commerce to send purchase orders and receive invoices from its 650 suppliers.
According to Kewill and Cyclone, the retailer is the first to sign up to the system.
EDI is a recognised standard for transferring sensitive financial data in a legally recognised form, but until recently it required a bespoke network to be set up between the supplier and the customer.
In 1996, the AS2 protocol was accepted as the standard EDI over the Internet, allowing retailers to automate the process without having to build their own network.
In late 2002, Wal-Mart asked suppliers to comply with the AS2 standard.
Cyclone is one of the retailer's IT providers.
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