[Column] Andy Papastefanou: Standardising eSignatures to drive adoption

The eSignature market is highly regulated with a plethora of choices when it comes to vendor solutions. Organisations are often overwhelmed with a vast range of possibilities when implementing electronic signatures into their business processes, and this often stifles the adoption. Key to any eSignature solution selection is understanding what standards have been established to ensure that the organisation’s investment is protected.

Standards have a major impact on business performance and technological efficiency. By establishing consistent interfaces, businesses can adopt a standard that they know is universally understood, legally compliant and cost effective. Some advantages of embracing a global standard for eSignatures include avoiding vendor lock in and promoting application development through interoperability and reuse. Increased levels of consumer adoption will ultimately lead to eSignatures becoming a commodity, lowering its overall cost. Which standards are setting the benchmark and best practices that your organisation should be following? 

The Cloud Signature Consortium (CSC) was founded to create a global standard for eSignatures. “The Cloud Signature Consortium is a group of industry and academic organisations committed to building a new standard for cloud-based digital signatures. Its mission is to support web and mobile applications and comply with the most demanding electronic signature regulations in the world. The goal? To provide a common technical specification that will make solutions interoperable and suitable for uniform adoption in the global market,” confirms Andy Papastefanou, founder of Impression Signatures.  

As the first and only South African member of the global Cloud Signature Consortium, Impression Signatures leans heavily on these best practice guidelines to ensure all its digital signature processes are verifiable, trackable, compliant and secure. “At Impression, we are committed to driving eSignature adoption amongst organisations and consumers. While creating our own technology, it was important that Impression consider the trends globally while still focusing on the unique requirements of our local market,” continued Papastefanou. 

When simplifying and streamlining digital experiences, organisations should carefully consider standards and benchmarks - and this is especially true for eSignatures. “The Cloud Signature Consortium will have a marked impact on the cloud signature landscape and by partnering with Impression, customer contracts will be more secure, digital signatures will comply with all regulations and parties can trust that the highest standards have been considered in the generation, signature and storage of vital documents,” he concludes.

Andy Papastefanou is the founder of Impression Signatures, South Africa.