BioSignature. It's signed, naturally! Implementation of biometric signature at Santander Leasing
Project objective
Paperless with biometric signature
Out of concern for the environment, Santander Leasing has decided to abandon paper contracts and introduce only electronic versions, to simplify their conclusion and improve customer experience, while speeding up by more than a half the average contract handling time. And in addition to increase the security of the contracting process and customer data while maintaining the formality of document signing. A digital yet classic solution was to emphasize the company’s innovativeness and position it as a pioneer in the Polish leasing market. Digitization was supposed to reduce the cost of paper, printers, postage and archiving.
The digitization of lease contracts has meant profound changes in workflow processes. From preparing them and making them available to customers to shipping and archiving. The process of checking and launching contracts also needed to be changed.
Our contribution
It was decided to select the Asseco Data Systems’ proposal, utilizing Certum's qualified trust services – electronic seal and time stamp, biometric signature based on Xtension's signaturiX solution.
The market advantage of the solution implemented for Santander Leasing is its integration with qualified Asseco trust services compliant with the eIDAS regulation: qualified seal and qualified electronic time stamp, in order to secure the authenticity of the origin and integrity of the biometric signature, as well as the time of placing it.
Once the biometric signature is made, the document is “closed,” and from then on it is not possible to change its contents or use the biometric data contained in the signature placed. The biometric data for the graphological analysis of the signature will always be secure and can only be accessed by a forensic expert authorized by a court or other institution.
The new solution, called BioSignature, was officially made available to customers in February 2022. After the first few months of implementation, almost 35% of agreements were already being concluded using the new signature method. Selected advisors are already signing even more than 80% of agreements in this format.
The project was implemented in three major phases.
Key benefits
Speeding up the process of concluding a contract and its execution
Reducing costs associated with printing over 40,000 contracts each year and their archiving costs
Protecting the environment by eliminating the use of more than half a million sheets of paper (saving at least 50 trees a year)
Increased security of lease documentation
Milestones of the project
This is a state-of-the-art solution that confirms the exact date the e-document was signed — a certain date. It allows to protect e-documents from falsification and backdating.
This solution uses a qualified electronic seal certificate that contains the data of the entity with legal personality (i.e., company, organization, public administration entity). The service is compliant with the European eIDAS regulation, thanks to which documents bearing an electronic seal retain full legal force and validity specified by this regulation.
Tailor-made paperless products and services
Electronically captured handwritten graphic mark made with a stylus on a mobile device – a tablet or smartphone. A unique feature of the tool is that it has been integrated with Asseco’s qualified trust services, qualified seal and qualified electronic timestamp, compliant with the eIDAS Regulation to secure the authenticity of the origin and integrity of the signature and its timing.
SignaturiX digital handwritten signature module.
“We launched a pioneering and innovative project, which at the same time had to comply with very demanding leasing laws.
It was therefore creative, not reproductive work, inspired by other implementations. Although there were similar projects in the market, none of them was as comprehensive and cross-cutting as ours. It was necessary to combine legal, process, technology issues in a new business environment. The scale of the project can be measured by the number of users or even by the value – amounting to billions of zlotys – of contracts concluded in this way.” I would like to emphasize that all parties to the project have demonstrated a determination to achieve a clearly defined goal. We are introducing biosignatures to further simplify the way we enter into agreements. The completed implementation naturally translates into paperless operations. We generate more than 40,000 contracts each year in our leasing operations, resulting in the consumption of more than half a million pieces of paper. It takes at least 50 trees to produce that amount of paper. As a company, we also benefit a lot from this solution, as it increases our efficiency, reduces costs, has a positive impact on our image; all this increases our competitiveness.”
“A key challenge in the project was the lack of legislation explicitly defining biosignature issues.
It was therefore necessary to develop a legal position in relation to the biosignature. The bill confirms that under current law, a signature in the form of an electronically made and recorded handwritten graphic mark is a handwritten signature in the legal sense. The biosignature fulfills all the functions of a signature that are considered sufficient by legal doctrine for a handwritten graphic sign to be a signature and, together with its related content, to constitute a document meeting the requirements of the written form as set forth in the Civil Code.”
