7 eSignature Myths Debunked!

Electronic signatures have been here for a long time now. At this age when technology has proved to be an important factor in eliminating delays and hurdles faced at the workplace, there are still people who remain ignorant or misinformed when it comes to signing documents online.

Here are some of the myths that are still going around with regard to eSignatures.

eSignatures aren’t secureFalse. Using eSignatures can be likened to using the internet to transfer money from your bank - it's perfectly safe. Qualified eSignature providers have different methods to secure documents – SSL encryption, biometric authentication, passcodes, and password protected accounts. See here.They have no legal validityFalse. Electronic signatures have been legalized in many countries over the world (read more). The federal E-Sign Act of 2000 passed in the USA, The Electronic Signatures Directive of 1999 in the European Union, laid the foundations for legislations passed by different countries around the world (with others following the suit as we speak). They acknowledge electronic signatures as binding as handwritten or wet signatures.I can never prove that someone has signed a documentFalse. Qualified electronic signature solutions such as Signeasy provide a signature certificate to verify the audit trail. The signature certificates provide unique document fingerprints, IP addresses of the signers, and time stamps indicating when the document was signed.

All this paperless, going green claims are nonsenseFalse. If you think this is true, then here are a few stats: 50% of business waste is constituted by paper; 42% of the global wood harvest is used to make paper; approximately 400 million tonnes of paper and paperboard are produced globally. 1 tree can produce 80000 A4 sheets. Imagine how much paper can be saved with electronic signatures instead of relying on paper. At Signeasy, over the past five years, we’ve helped save approximately 57 million sheets of paper, which is close to 712 trees. You do the math.

They are costlyFalse. Consider purchasing a house you really like. You treat it as an investment, not as a credit sink. Similarly, electronic signature apps can be considered as an investment too. Why? Beyond the obvious benefits of helping you sign documents online and on the go, they help save money in the long run. AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) estimates that processing a hand-signed page costs a company $6.50. A research conducted by Ombud gives the figure of an average of $20 saved per document – for enterprises that adopted eSignatures. Since Signeasy’s entry into the market, we’ve helped our users save nearly $100 million.

I need to be technically competent to use eSignatures

False. eSignature applications are very easy to use, and can be used by anyone with a functional smartphone. The entire tech is handled by the eSignature provider; the users have an intuitive signing experience that lets them do just that and nothing else.

They require special software to be installedFalse. The software is used on the cloud. You use the app on your browser or on your app, and send the documents online. User-centric eSignature solutions allow you to sign documents on the web within your browsers, as well as on your phones or tablets.

You can learn more on the benefits eSignatures bring to your business here.