Lund, March 19, 2013 - Anoto, the world leader in digital writing technology, today announced that its digital writing technology is able to conform to legal obligations for documents that require a signature as a form of authorisation. In some European countries, documents such as consumer loan agreements, patient records, delivery notes and payroll documents are not legal unless signed in ink. However, there is an increasing need from both local and EU legislators to maintain both a physical and electronic copy of legally binding documents.
A recent verdict from the Munich Court of Appeals in Germany ruled that pure electronic signatures are not sufficient to make agreements binding on consumers. The court decision means that for any consumer contracts, a physical signature is required as opposed to a pure digital signature written on a tablet or touchpad device. For businesses this presents a challenge, because a digital copy is also required to accompany any paper based document; they have been attempting to skip a step and just obtain the signature digitally. Anoto’s patented digital writing technology is ideally suited for this scenario as the person is able to sign the document in ink, which in turn is captured in electronic format at the same time, creating a truly turnkey solution.
In Germany, the Savings Bank of Kaiserslautern (Kreissparkasse Kaiserslautern) is using 250 Anoto digital writing pens at its main branch to capture customers’ digital signatures for legally binding financial documents. The implementation work was carried out by Anoto’s partner, digipen technologies GmbH. Altogether, there are 426 Savings Banks in Germany with 15,441 subsidiaries.
“Digital signatures are becoming increasingly common as businesses are trying to find new ways of streamlining traditional paper-based processes,” says Anoto CEO, Stein Revelsby. “However, in many cases obtaining just a digital signature is not sufficient and an original physical signature is still required. Therefore it is important that businesses have a solution that can digitise an original handwritten signature on the fly, thus eliminating the need to scan numerous documents. This solution fulfills a host of legal and financial requirements to maintain a digital and paper based copy of a document.”
For more information please contact:
Stein Revelsby, CEO
Anoto Group AB
+46 (0)733 45 12 05
About Anoto
Anoto Group is the company behind and world leading in the unique technology for digital pen and paper, which enables fast and reliable transmission of handwritten text into a digital format. Anoto operates through a global partner network that focuses on user-friendly solutions for efficient capture, transmission and storage of data within different business segments, e.g. healthcare, bank and finance, transport and logistics and education. The Anoto Group has about 110 employees and is headquartered in Lund (Sweden). The company also has offices in Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Guildford and Wetherby (UK), Boston (US) and Tokyo (Japan). The Anoto share is traded on the Small Cap list of NASDAQ OMX Stockholm under the ticker ANOT. For more information: www.anoto.com.
