Two sides of mobile digital signature. Mobile signature with smartphone: the growing trend of 2019

2018 was the year of the successful implementation and development of new mobile financial services, while many banks focused on corporate customers. Implementation of mobile and cloud-based digital signatures by major financial market players has shown an example of how to reduce the risks of using modern remote banking. As a result, the list of services significantly expanded and limits on many types of transactions removed. I suppose that next year smaller banks will also follow this trend.

An Alternative to SMS and PUSH Codes

As a player in the market for digital transaction confirmation technologies, we noticed three years ago that banks started to look for an alternative to SMS and PUSH codes. They chose “signature with smartphone” as the best solution due to:

• security considerations as the signature on the user’s smartphone improves the security of operations—a signature is generated based on the data of a specific transaction and the unique characteristics of the mobile device used;
• economic considerations with the objective to reduce the cost of telecom services;
• banks’ desire to make operations for their customers simpler and more convenient as the mobile and cloud-based signature technologies allow users to sign financial transactions with a single finger swipe across the screen.

It is important to understand that different customer segments and different service sets require different levels of “legal effect” of the signature. For example, when remotely servicing individuals or medium/small businesses, a simple or enhanced digital signature is quite sufficient, but for enterprises with public ownership or when interacting with government agencies (tax reporting, new business registration, etc.), it is necessary to use certified cryptographic tools and enhanced qualified digital signatures (QDS).

We are pleased to acknowledge that SafeTech was able to develop and provide customers with convenient and secure technologies for remote authorization of digital transactions and signing documents—solutions that allow Russian banks to actively introduce both new services using QDS and an enhanced signature to replace SMS codes in service systems for individuals, as well as medium and small businesses.

A single solution

The first solution, PayControl, is a digital signature solution in a smartphone that allows customers to authorize their transactions in any digital channel (online banking, mobile banking, CNP operations, telephone banking (Private bank), and others) with a high level of security and convenience. PayControl can work both as a standalone mobile app and can be integrated directly into a mobile banking application. This year alone the product was implemented by: Alfa Bank, Russian Agricultural Bank, Ak Bars Bank, and many others. The largest developers of remote banking systems in the Russian Federation (BSS, iSimpleLab, ArtSofte, Information Systems, and others) provide support of PayControl out of the box.

The second solution, CryptoPro myDSS (a joint initiative with CryptoPro), allows you to simply and conveniently authorize digital transactions and documents with a qualified digital signature directly with your smartphone. The largest Russian banks already use CryptoPro myDSS, for example, VTB clients can use it to register business at the Tax Office from home. Now, the bank is launching several more initiatives relating to some unique services. However, we will talk about this in 2019.