It’s hard to believe that 10 years have already passed since President Clinton symbolically eSigned the E-SIGN Act. In that time the electronic signature industry has certainly grown and progressed a long way. The software and processes have greatly improved, mobile devices have evolved and changed the way business is done, and everyday more businesses are realizing the benefits of online automated processes. Without the E-SIGN Act who knows what direction the industry and e-commerce as a whole would have gone.

The E-SIGN Act not only made electronic signatures legal, it instilled confidence in businesses, and more importantly their general council, to leverage new and emerging technologies to help their businesses grow. In 2000 businesses were still struggling with the idea of how to handle online business transactions, e-commerce was still a somewhat new idea without much supportive legislation.

Over the past decade it’s become hard to imagine not having the ability to jump online to complete a transaction, purchase insurance, sign leasing agreements, etc. without the confidence that your documents will be correctly signed, secured, and managed. eOriginal is not only a proud pioneer of these technologies but we continue to forge ahead by enabling businesses to utilize other technologies such as multimedia signatures with voice authentication, bio-metric data, and hand-written signatures captured on pads to complete their online transactions. The value of electronic signatures and the E-SIGN Act and is proven by the success of our clients who have adopted our technologies to improve their processes such as:

• A major leasing company that in several months shortened their customer acquisition from 5 days to 10 minutes.

• One of the largest auto financers surpassed their target of 44% adoption and reached an 80% adoption rate within the first 12 months and can now complete a transaction in as little as 20 minutes.

• An insurance provider that uses our patent-pending voice signature technology to not only complete a contract but also initiate payment in a single transaction.

• Several of our clients have securitized more than $5 billion in econtracts using our systems for the secondary market

As impressive as these achievements have been in the last 10 years, the next decade has even more promise as business drive down costs, become greener, speed their processes and incorporate additional technology such as the latest generation Smart Phones and the iPad™ to create a better customer experience. So big thanks to the E-SIGN Act for kick-starting our industry.

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eOriginal SmartSign® has the most comprehensive digital signing process on the market however there is a great deal more to securing your digitally signed business agreements.

A digital signature can be legally binding but that is only the first component of creating a digital asset whose value must be protected in accordance with business practices and compliance with legal and regulatory statutes appropriate to the industry in which the asset will reside.

The total digital asset consists of the digital signature, the digital document to which it is associated, and how they are bound in combination to certify them as a “unique” electronic original document. Life cycle management processes that dictate their access permission, transfer rights, and a legally admissible audit trail that tracks these processes are all also included in creating a digital asset.

These “back-end” processes have important legal, business continuity and regulatory implications that become critical if the digital asset is to retain its commercial value as an electronic transaction. This is of even greater importance when it will serve as chattel or likely to be transferred on a rights basis or by location.

This is why lightweight offerings, particularly pure-play signing tools, don’t provide the full set of features such as a unique authoritative copy or the back-end functionality for life cycle management and audit trails needed to create a true digital asset. So, the obligations for development, integration, compliance and liability are placed on the client.

This is why eOriginal has placed equal emphasis on perfecting and integrating both the front-end signature process and the back-end life cycle management process. The architectural requirements to seamlessly execute these components, while meeting every regulatory statute that governs these processes, is significant and the basis for many of our patents in this field.

So by its nature, eOriginal’s SmartSign has to be more robust than even comprehensive electronic content management or document management offerings while playing nicely with them by complementing their functionality and compliance to provide a better overall system for digital assets.

eOriginal is the only esignature provider that has been certified by top ratings agencies for securitization. And, while this securitization capability is not necessary for every electronic transaction, the underlying functionality that earned such a rating is very relevant to serious businesses.

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