E-signature demand spikes around the world to support remote transactions

E-signatures are among the many technologies supporting digital identity transactions more than ever with much of the world on stay-at-home orders. Demand is rising in Indonesia, Poland, and the U.S., according to e-signature companies.

A pair of e-signature providers in Indonesia are reporting major gains in customer requests from February to March, with physical distancing driving businesses in the country to adopt digital contracts with e-signatures, The Jakarta Post reports.

Digisign says its customer requests went up 50 percent, and PrivyID says its requests leaped by 350 percent when the government declared a state of disaster and urged citizens to stay home. Digisign CEO Willy Walanio says between 70 and 80 percent of those new customers have been successfully onboarded. There are three e-signature companies certified by the Communications and Information Ministry of Indonesia, the above two and Vida.

PrivyID CEO Marshall Pribadi says the company, which recently joined the FIDO Alliance and raised 6 million Malaysian Ringgits (US$1.38 million) in a Series A funding round last year, has diversified its customer base to include contractors, consultancies, manufacturers, law firms and telecommunications providers. Financial institutions and peer-to-peer (P2P) lenders in particular initially drove demand in e-signatures in Indonesia. Pribadi says the company hopes to grow from 350 companies to at least 1,000 within three or four months.

Indonesia’s strict civil law-based standards give its e-signature companies advantages over those from countries like the U.S., Singapore, and Australia, he says. A partner at one of the country’s largest law firms, however, says that local e-signature providers remain somewhat unknown and under-utilized by multinationals and foreign investment companies.

Pribadi also chairs the Indonesian Regtech and Legaltech Association (IRLA). IRLA advisor Ajisatria Suleiman tells The Jakarta Post that the growth of e-signature use in Indonesia is part of a global trend.

“In Singapore, for example, the use of cash and debit- or credit cards has gone down, [as it is] replaced with mobile payments. Then comes even more contactless technology, like facial recognition, replacing fingerprint authentication,” Ajisatria says.

Eurocert selects Cryptomathic for QES

The Signer e-signature platform from Cryptomathic has been chosen to bring qualified electronic signature (QES) services to Poland-based Eurocert customers, according to a company announcement.

The addition of Signer allows Eurocert’s private and public sector customers to digitally sign legally binding documents after securely accessing online applications from anywhere at any time, which can reduce the cost of securely managing sensitive digital material between different parties, Cryptomathic says.

“Eurocert’s clients need the highest probative value when communicating digitally with third parties, which is exactly what we provide with Signer,” comments Guillaume Forget, Managing Director, Cryptomathic GmbH. “To complete their digitalization journey, banks, insurance companies and other organisations require a remote signing capability that complies with national and international laws on identification and signatures for proof of explicit commitment.”

The remote QES service is delivered through Cryptomathic’s partnership with Esysco, which provides integration services, a web application PDF signing portal, and a cardless desktop application for signing locally with remotely stored keys. A remote video identification solution for onboarding is also planned for implementation.

Signer was certified for the new eIDAS protection profile for remote Qualified Electronic Signatures in November.

GlobalSign sees U.S. market growth

GlobalSign Americas General Manager Lila Kee says the company is seeing a “significant increase” is digital signature use. The company is promoting its cloud-based Digital Signing Service as a fully managed remote signing solution that gives enterprises both digital signature and eIDAS-compliant advanced electronic signatures (AdES).

“Now, more than ever, the need is truly great for a way to securely sign documents electronically. Whether your company is at the enterprise level, or an SMB, GlobalSign is here to help companies worldwide get through this extremely challenging time while still meeting their business operational requirements,” Kee says.

“GlobalSign endorses the trend at the federal and state level towards the further digitization of notarial acts, although unfortunately driven by COVID-19. Given the urgent need to adopt this new method, we understand many notaries are not equipped to rapidly transition to eNotarization technology. We are here to help with low barrier-to-entry solutions that are simple, cost-effective and fast to implement.”

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital identity  |  electronic-signature  |  identity verification  |  PrivyID