eSIGN ANYWHERE™ – Implement one eSignature platform for all your business channels

An Electronic Signature Platform refers to the software and hardware framework needed to securely implement electronic signature technology across all your business channels. Initially, many customers want to address the business channel that generates the most revenue or the one that generates the largest amounts of paper and expense. Though an excellent place to start, catering to just one business channel can present a limited view of what could be a unified solution.

A successful implementation will therefore consider all of the relevant business channels and evaluate the approaches used in each. Once you have a holistic view of how eSignatures can be used enterprise-wide, you can select a platform that grows with your needs.

Getting started
Consider the reasons for capturing a signature and the environment where the signing process will occur. The technology, its implementation, and the processes must come together to provide a secure signature that can stand up against legal scrutiny. Therefore, it’s important to ensure that your electronic signature implementation must be clearly understood and accepted by the business, legal, compliance, and security personnel within your team.

All channels working in unison
By implementing an Electronic Signature Platform, all your business channels will be able to conduct business and capture customers’ consent through whatever means is the most appropriate. Consider the following environments in which an eSignature can be captured and what solution is required:

In the examples above, the technology requirements and signing environments may differ, but each option involves filling out a form and submitting the completed work to the same back-office service personnel for continued processing. By implementing an eSignature platform, the same core technology is used no matter where or how the signing occurs. This means that the back-office personnel can verify all eSignatures independent of the business channel – branch office, online, phone, and mobile agents.

General Implementation Guidelines
In the following section of the document, we will outline how to build a trustworthy electronic signature process.

Who signed?
Of course one of the most important elements of any signature – wet-ink or electronic – is the identity of the signer. The signature, according to law, must be unique, under the sole control of the signer, and verifiable. In most implementations, the handwritten electronic signature is the method organizations start with. Keep in mind that an online process that leverages your current authentication methods can identify the signer as effectively as a face-to-face transaction.

Consent to use electronic records and signatures
Once authentication has occurred, but prior to capturing the signer’s actual signature, the process must capture the signer’s consent to receive and create an electronic record with legal enforceability.

Providing information about the signing process
When gaining eSignature consent and prior to executing an electronic contract, the signer must understand the process. Therefore, the disclosure for capturing consent should include a description that informs the signer what steps they will be asked to perform.

Establishing intent to sign
The process used to create an eSignature should be designed so that it is clear that the signer intended to create a signature. As with a paper process, the ceremony of capturing the electronic signature is important in proving intent.

What gets signed
Once the signer has been informed of his or her rights and has consented to the process of esigning, the actual process must be created so the association of the signer, their intent, the data or agreement, and the place and time are inseparable and sufficiently secured should the record itself come under scrutiny. For this reason, the legal establishment, in its drafting and ultimately the passing of ESIGN, used the term ‘process’ signature.

In order to be considered a reliable signature-of-record, the burden of proof will fall on the enterprise application architects to show that the process will result in an agreement that is tamper-evident and trustworthy. A process for signing records should be designed so that the record is presented for signature before the signature is applied; the signature is attached to, embedded, or logically associated with, the record presented; and the process used to attach, embed, or associate the signature shall make for a verifiable, tamper-evident signature.

Attributing a signature
The process for signing records should be designed so that either the signature itself provides evidence of the signer’s identity (i.e., a handwritten eSignature, digitized signature, or digital certificate) or the process surrounding creation or affirmation of the signature provides evidence of the signer’s identity and is in some manner preserved, evidenced, or capable of recall or re-creation during the life of the transaction.

Pulling It All Together
Your particular application and process will dictate how your organization will assemble the ingredients for your eSignature implementation. The right eSignature platform provides flexible signing options, varied implementation schemes, key legal components, and ideally a common validation platform tying it all together – providing consistency throughout your organization, and most importantly, a legally binding and enforceable transaction.