Banking, Finance & Insurance

The economic climate has changed dramatically. The costs of interacting with customers and other third parties in traditional ways are constantly increasing.

It is clear that there are dramatic savings to be made by eliminating paper based processes and replacing them with faster, accurate, auditable workflows using e-documents.

Digital / electronic identities (eIDs) can be used to identify internal users or workflow processes so that individual documents can be approved and digitally signed. For high volume signing in processes such as e-statements, e-invoices and other reports automated server-side corporate digital signatures are required, with adequate authorisation controls. Such digital signatures provide excellent authenticity, traceability and control compared to paper-based processes. Complex documents such as financial instruments, insurance policies and agreements can be easily handled online and signed by both parties to avoid time delays, mistakes, increase accuracy and completion rates.

Legal Compliance

All G20 countries have enacted legislation that recognises digital signatures (or electronic signatures) as equivalent to hand-written signatures. Usually these need to be produced according to specific requirements. (e.g. the EU Directive on Electronic Signature 1999/93/Ec of European parliament and council). However any digital signature can be used to identify the confirming user or system or organisation. Digital certificates can be issued by a high-trust or mid-trust or other Certificate Service Provider or even using an internal CA.

Ascertia’s products have been designed to be compliant with a range of digital signature legislations and regulatory frameworks, including EU law (EU Directive for Electronic Signatures), EU Directive for E-Invoicing, IdenTrust, US Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-Sign), The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), 21 CFR Part 11 (a regulation governing the use of electronic or digital signatures within the pharmaceutical industry), Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and others.