Corporates and businesses have traditionally believed in using paper-based contracts or invoices which have to be physically signed and couriered between the two parties (which could be customers, vendors or individuals). But with the advent of digital signature provided after digital verification, came up the scope to eliminate the paper based system and move to electronic signature. This has been particularly instrumental during lockdown situation to ensure business continuity. In the past, some of the corporates have been using digital signatures when dealing with business but the usage has been low. Now most corporates are trying to move to legally-valid electronic signing in India and this has been further extended to individuals, including those who do not have and need a long term valid digital signature but instead can get a one-time signature to sign any document after completing their Digital KYC.
India’s experience in combating Covid-19 has led to disruptions in the existing digital modes of verification and signature, include Smart ID/Card Reader, electronic signature, smooth pass, biometric signature, etc.
“With the exposure and disruption to the way we live and our population understanding that the need for maintaining human distance and reducing touch based systems, we will see a lot of changes from Digital PoS systems which will use contactless cards, reduction of finger print biometric accesses, contracts which require physical papers to be sent from one person to another and also courier/delivery. As much as possible, there will be high focus on moving away from medium that carries a physical human touch,” informs Naveen Chava, CEO, IDSign.
IDSign has been envisioned as a digital and verifiable platform to facilitate business and contractual obligations within the legal framework. In the present scenario where users looks ahead to complete their legal obligations remotely, IDSign platform provides the most simple and seamless platform for individuals and businesses to verify identity, authenticate business transactions. “By bringing, digital signing to mobile and bringing on-boarding completely paperless, IDSign will pioneer digital verification and signing in India across areas- regulatory filings, business agreements, HR agreements, healthcare and so on. This is done by offering an easy to on-board use with simplified integration to corporate applications,” says Chava.
He further states, “We already have a solid plan in place to capture the digital signing market of individual directors and corporate signatories to move into device/HW/OS agnostic platform of IDSign. In addition, we will also be targeting banks, credit card and NBFCs for which the solution is a must have. Post that we have the market of healthcare, logistics, eCommerce, retail etc., which needs the same solution to help them take the user experience to the next level. We have a US$ 20mn revenue plan in India and another geography currently in the next two years and a US$100mn revenue plan covering other geographies and market segments in the next five years.”
India has witnessed the foray of global companies into digital signing market. Will it impact the industry and the home bread digital signature companies? “The key is that the companies need to understand the regulations of each geography and one solution does not fit all geographies. So even if you are a global company with a platform that covers a solution that works, it might not cover all aspects needed in terms of regulation, legal and security aspects. The impact will come when the solution can be easily customised or covers the aspects required across the globe,” answers Chava.
