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The Standards and Procedures for Electronic
Records and Signatures ("SPeRS")
project is an eCommerce initiative sponsored by
the Electronic Financial Services Council ("EFSC"). SPeRS creates voluntary, industry wide guidelines for
the electronic execution of signatures, record retention, printing,
delivery, and presentation of information. The development of such
guidelines will permit businesses to establish a common understanding
with vendors concerning design specifications, provide the customer with
a "common experience" across various online transactions and
establish industry practice for enforceable structures and processes
under the recently enacted federal ESIGN law and the various state
adoptions of UETA. As a result, customers and service providers should
experience a greater level of comfort in the use of electronic documents
and implementation of such technology. Finally, the existence of widely
used standards would provide courts with a reference point in determining
if particular practices related to e-signatures and e-records are
"commercially reasonable."
In the eight years since it was first
published, SPeRS has achieved widespread
acceptance and use as a guide to implementing electronic records and
signatures. The drafting committee included Adobe, AIG, Dell Financial
Services, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, GE Capital Mortgage Corporation,
Harland Financial, Intuit Inc., MassMutual Financial Group, Mortgage
Guarantee Insurance Corporation, PricewaterhouseCoopers, TIAA-CREF, Wells
Fargo Home Mortgage, Zions
Bancorporation/Digital Signature Trust, as well as the following trade
associations: American Bankers Association, ACLI, MBA/MISMO, and the
Software and Information Industry Association.
SPeRS has been embraced by a number of industry
verticals such as the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Mortgage
Industry Standards Maintenance Organization, the National Association of
Variable Annuities and its successor organization, the Insured Retirement
Institute (in conjunction with the electronic delivery of annuity and
insurance products), and by the American National Standards Institute
(ANSI) as a technical standard approved by ANSI’s Accredited
Standards Committee, X9: ANS X9.103-2004 (Motor Vehicle Retail Sale and
Lease Electronic Contracting) to provide guidance for the creation of
electronic chattel paper in the automotive industry. Thus, SPeRS is on track to fulfill its mission: as a
reference resource for businesses designing and deploying systems using
electronic records and signatures.
Initially released in September 2003, SPeRS consists of five areas:
- Authentication
- ESIGN Consent
- Signature
- Agreements, Disclosures
and Notices
- Record
Retention
Although SPeRS has
published its second volume, SPeRS is seeking
additional participants to build upon its future innovations. Your
company does not need to be a member of the EFSC in order to join the SPeRS Drafting Committee.
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