Imagine what it’s like signing an international contract. If you’re very senior management, or at least very lucky, all parties are in the boardroom, signing with ceremonial pens. For the rest of us, it’s a time-consuming process of multiple copies, international couriers, and balky, slow customs agents.
The process is painfully protracted. One party drafts a document, sends it off, then waits. The other party signs the document, sends it back, and waits. This repeats for however many parties there are in the agreement, possibly backtracking, occasionally getting lost. Sooner, or very often later, everyone will have the document they need and can begin to execute.
Happily, there is a better way. By using blockchain, Proxeus has made it possible for multiple parties to digitally sign documents simultaneously and securely, creating a document that is immutable, legally binding and permanent.
This functionality has been used already in April of this year, when together with IBM and Swisscom, Proxeus legally registered a company from scratch in one hour and 37 minutes — a world record breaking time. This not only demonstrated the effectiveness of digital signatures in making previously paper-driven processes more efficient, but shows that with proper guidance, organizations as traditionally conservative as governing bodies can adopt blockchain technology and accept a digital signature as legally binding.
The technology is already available for users to test in Proxeus’ second beta release. This module is composed of a blockchain-controlled, off-chain storage DApp. Users can upload documents securely, set access rights via blockchain, and request digital signatures from collaborators in DApp. The beta release doesn’t reflect the full scope of the Proxeus ecosystem, as it isn’t integrated with the workflow building functionality, but it is nonetheless a powerful demonstration of how blockchain and Proxeus can radically increase business efficiency.
Contracts are vital to both our personal and professional lives. By making the process of signing, sharing and validating them more efficient, we lower the time and financial costs of doing business, and give each of us more time — and hopefully more money! — to spend as we see fit.
The DApp beta is currently in pre-access, with sharing and signing contracts just one of the many use cases to be tried. Click here for early access to the beta test, and a chance to win won of up to 10,000 XES-worth’s of prizes for pretesters.
