Capitec – South Africa’s largest digital bank – has taken the final step in its paperless journey with the introduction of an eSignature capability, by means of a biometric fingerprint.
At a time of COVID-19 and social distancing, this is a crucial move to ramp up convenience and help keep South Africans safe.
Biometric readers allow for sanitization after each client’s use, while paper documents cannot be easily disinfected between parties.
“We’re constantly challenging the norm, helping our clients to live better through smarter, simpler banking. Our transition to paperless banking is in line with this, offering our clients improved convenience in the form of faster service times and simpler processes,” Wim de Bruyn, Executive: Business Development and Technology at Capitec, says.
“We will extend this capability to facial biometrics later this year, allowing our clients to eSign documents from anywhere, 24/7 on our banking app.”
Capitec is the first South African bank to introduce a legally compliant eSignature, which means it complies with Section 13 of the South African Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act of 2002, in that:
- The electronic signature used is able to identify the signatory
- The signatory is indicating their approval by applying their electronic signature
- The method of capturing the signature is appropriately reliable under the circumstances under which the document is signed
Clients will be enrolled for the new eSignature solution as they make use of a Capitec branch.
