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Checks are still alive and Check Fraud is on the rise
Although the rate of online banking is increasing hundreds of billions of checks are written every year throughout the world. The affinity to checks is not diminishing in the "check countries". The relative importance of checks as a payment instrument is outstandingly high in Singapore (73,3% in 2006), Turkey (66,6% in 2005), the United States (54,7% in 2006), Brazil (40% in 2005) and Canada (35,0% in 2006). Areas with exceptional economic growth such as the Gulf countries or Australia even reported increasing numbers in check usage in recent years. For financial institutions worldwide, check processing and clearing is a significant cost factor in the payment process. However, reduction in processing costs leads to higher check fraud risk exposure. Check fraud is consistently rising year-over-year and is expected to continue to rise as fraud perpetration using other payment instruments such as credit cards becomes increasingly difficult. The use of checks as a vehicle for fraudulent transactions is a global phenomena. The figures about check fraud worldwide are impressive. However only a few organizations are publishing figures about fraud cases and money lost due to check fraud.
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Holistic Check Fraud Prevention is highly important
These losses can be avoided. Searching for fraud amongst the billions of transactions may seem like searching for a needle in a haystack. However there is one holistic and sustainable way to address all relevant aspects of check fraud and effectively lower the operational risk. Leading financial institutions around the globe cope with this challenge in using Softpro's SignPlus product suite and securing millions of transactions every day. Up until now, the challenge to fighting this fraud has been to reduce check processing costs while increasing, rather than decreasing, protection against fraud losses.
At MEFX Softpro showcases the brandnew version 4.0 of SignPlus Edition II. Banks enjoy substantial savings for back-office check processing centers by automating tedious and error-prone manual verification while significantly improving the detection of fraudulent items. This solution enables banks to take necessary precautions to secure the paper-based payment process and prevent losses from check fraud in a truly cost-effective manner. Softpro has a proven track record with its systems for the validation of handwritten signatures and fraud prevention in payment processes. The company provides the SignPlus suite of products, which were initially conceived in cooperation with a consortium of the largest U.S. banks. The solution is considered by many of the US Tier 1 banks to be a "best practice industry initiative" to combat check fraud and has been successfully deployed at many of the world's largest financial institutions since its inception.
Trustworthy e-Signing with the Handwritten Signature
For the first time in the Arab region Softpro is showcasing the next generation signature tablet, named SignPad eSignio, introduced to market in December 2007. In the Berliner Sparkasse, one of the largest German Savings Banks, signing on the pad is now part of their primary account opening process in 150 branches. The SignPad tablet allows customers of the Berliner Sparkasse to sign their banking documents and transactions both digitally and securely. The device was specifically developed for the digitizing of handwritten signatures in close co-operation with Wacom and Softpro. "Paperless signing" is a reality there now as customers sign directly onto the display of the SignPad using Softpro’s SignDoc electronic signing software in combination with Adobe Reader and intelligent Adobe documents (based on Adobe Live Cycle). The Berliner Sparkasse expects to significantly save on the cost of paper handling and archiving.
The SignPad has a cordless, battery-free pen. The signature is captured on a non-reflective 5" TFT LCD. The device offers enough space to cater for longer signatures as well, like when some customers may sign with two surnames. The tablet display is designed to offer the same signing feeling as if writing on paper. In combination with Softpro’s account opening software, customers are able to provide a complete paperless workflow for the storing of signatures and legally binding documents such as credit and loan contracts or account opening forms. Visitors of MEFX may experience this new way of signing for themselves.
The Berliner Sparkasse decided to use SignDoc from Softpro - the leading solution for trustworthy capturing, administration and verification of handwritten signatures in combination with the SignPad. Bodo Stüwe, responsible for the project at the Berliner Sparkasse, is convinced by the SignPad: ”We have tested several different input devices, but the SignPad is the only signing tablet that finally convinced us that signing digitally can be comfortable, user-friendly, robust, trustworthy, secure and cost-effective - all at the same time. The reason we chose the combination of SignPad and SignDoc is that we were convinced that it is the only combination that was able to adequately be deployed in a large scale environment.” The combination of SignPad (hardware) and SignDoc (software) is also officially certified by both processing centers of the savings banks in Germany - Sparkassen Informatik and Finanz IT - which are serving 477 savings banks.
