Frankfurt, 16 January 2020 – Swisscom Trust Services, the only European provider of a qualified electronic signature in accordance with eIDAS and ZertES, announces in the run-up to Omnisecure in Berlin that it will offer a platform that bundles various partner solutions for identification for a qualified electronic signature. For the first time, companies will be able to provide their customers with a choice of different identification procedures that can then repeatedly trigger qualified electronic signatures without having to register again. The integration of different procedures such as video identification, bank identification procedures, eID authentication or RA-App (face2face identification) also allows to better serve the needs and expectations of users. This enables companies to reduce the abandonment rate for digital transactions and to make digital business models more efficient.
“With our Smart Registration Service we eliminate the biggest stumbling block for companies when signing an electronic signature. The media disruption associated with an identification process often causes customers to cancel a transaction because it is too long, cumbersome or associated with specific requirements that the customer cannot or does not want to fulfil,” says Marco Schmid, Head of International Expansion Strategy at Swisscom Trust Services. “By providing various online procedures and the option of signing multiple times as desired using fingerprint, FaceID or password entry when registering once, companies improve their customers’ user experience and can retain them for longer”.
One-time registration for any number of signatures
The identification process required for a qualified electronic signature is decoupled from the actual signature process. For users, it often represents a media break, as the process must be interrupted in order to identify themselves to an identification point on site. The Smart Registration Service integrates various identification procedures from which users can choose the one that suits them best. These include the video identification procedure, in which a user identifies himself by means of a camera with his ID card, or the bank identification procedure, which determines the identity by means of an online bank login at the house bank, or also the eID authentication, in which the user identifies himself by means of a chip on the ID card and his smartphone.
When concluding a contract, customers receive a selection of the partner solutions for identification via the customer portal, which are all provided by Swisscom Trust Services as a one-stop shop. Using a URL, they are then forwarded directly to the partner, who carries out the identification and definition of the authentication. The results are sent directly encrypted to the Smart Registration Service of Swisscom Trust Services. For future transactions, the service will then check whether the customer is already registered and he will be forwarded to the signature process, where he only needs to authenticate himself using the pre-selected two-factor authentication. The Smart Registration Service can also be extended as required to include other identification solutions.
Flexibility and user-friendliness
For users, this has two major advantages: On the one hand, they receive a selection of different identification methods from which they can choose the preferred and appropriate method. Video identification, for example, is not possible from anywhere, as it requires sufficient bandwidth and is unsuitable for public spaces, such as during a train journey. Here a bank identification method can be advantageous. An additional advantage is that you can sign several times over months without having to identify yourself again. Using a selected authentication method, for example a confirmation code via SMS to the stored mobile number or an authentication app with Fingerprint or FaceID, the user can use the already registered identity again in a process in the future.
Companies benefit from integrating various processes into their signature service and thus achieve a broad coverage of identification possibilities. A transformation from the handwritten to the electronic signature is only possible if all possible signature partners can be identified in one way or another. Swisscom Trust Services also offers to integrate its own regulatory and legally compliant identification possibility. Contracts are processed much faster after registration, as only 2-factor authentication is required. Banks, for example, are no longer forced to carry out multiple identifications for different contracts, e.g. loan agreement, consent to data processing, etc.