Kores jointly with Softpro presents State of the Art in e-Signing and Cheque Fraud Detection at Smart Card Expo at Pragati Maidan, Delhi.

Fraud Detection and e-Signing specialist Softpro presents her solutions jointly with Kores at the leading IT-event in India Smart Card Expo‘09 from 10th to 12th Sep‘09 at Pragati Maidan, Delhi. The Signature experts will showcase their holistic fraud prevention suite "SignPlus" as well as their next generation signature tablet "SignPad" at the Biometrics Pavilion in hall 7E, stall 104 - along with their highly innovative end-to-end electronic account opening application.
Signatures experience a comeback as they offer what Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) or other Biometrics such as finger prints can not: They are a non-intrusive proof of intent. They are culturally accepted and understood. Their invisible biometric characteristics such as the different levels of writing pressure can not be spied out and signing is the most personal way for authentication. Reasons enough for more and more companies to get serious about signatures.

Trustworthy e-Signing with the Handwritten Signature
Softpro is showcasing the next generation signature tablet, named SignPad eSignio, introduced to market 15 months ago and now one of the most popular pads for e-signing worldwide. 2008 was the year of the breakthrough for e-signing in various verticals. Thousands of SignPads were rolled out at tellers of banks, counters of telecommunication companies and at cash terminals of large retailers. "Paperless signing" is a reality now as customers sign directly on the display of the SignPad using Softpro‘s SignDoc electronic signing software.
The upcoming release of the SignDoc product suite sets the next milestones in combining convenience and security in the most efficient way. SignDoc Web enables the signing of PDF documents directly in the web browser through an ultra thin client. The client side footprint is minimized and SignDoc Web can be disseminated with web-like convenience.
E-Signing with SignDoc is at least as secure as signing on paper: Besides the static image of the signature that is familiar to everyone on paper, signature tablets and Tablet PCs also capture dynamic signals. These signals are created throughout the signing process and may be used as additional security features. The different levels of the writing pressure, speed and velocity throughout the writing process are very unique to the individual signer. They can be verified automatically on demand.
Cheques are still alive and Cheque Fraud is on the rise
Although the rate of online banking is increasing hundreds of billions of cheques are written every year throughout the world. The affinity to cheques is not diminishing in the "cheque countries". The relative importance of cheques 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 cheque usage in recent years.
For financial institutions worldwide, cheque processing and clearing is a significant cost factor in the payment process. However, reduction in processing costs leads to higher cheque fraud risk exposure. Cheque fraud is consistently rising year-over-year and is expected to continue rising as fraud perpetration using other payment instruments such as credit cards becomes increasingly difficult.
The use of cheques as a vehicle for fraudulent transactions is a global phenomena. The figures about cheque fraud worldwide are impressive. However only a few organizations are publishing figures about fraud cases and money lost due to cheque fraud.
• According to the American Banker's Association cheque fraud accounted for more than $12.2 billion in 2006 (up from 5.5 billion in 2003 and $4.3 billion in 2001). Cheque fraud losses incurred in 80 per cent of the banks (up from 75 percent in 2003).
• According to French police reports, cheque fraud cases have increased by 85% between August 2005 and July 2006 in Paris alone.
• In Australia the average cheque fraud damage in 2005 was A$ 0.03 in every A$ 100 (0.0003%) = A$ 540 mil (approx. 300 mil EUR) lost to the financial industry in total.
• In the UK, cheque fraud attempts increased by 20% between 2003 and 2004 to a total of £665 million in potential fraud losses. Unfortunately no newer figures have been published so far.
Arguably the motivation for perpetrating cheque fraud crimes is the low risk of being caught. Cheque Societies
Country cheques
in mio data of
USA 30,557 2006
France 3,827 2006
United Kingdom 1,778 2006
Brazil 1,709 2005
Canada 1,325 2006
Australia 550 2006
Italy 453 2006
Sources:
• American Bankers Association (ABA), Deposit Account Fraud Survey Report
• Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA)
• Bank of International Settlements (BIS), Statistics on payment and settlement systems in selected countries "Red Book"
• European Central Bank (ECB)
• FEBRABAN Documentation for 2007 CIAB Congress
• US Federal Reserve Payments Study

Holistic Cheque 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 cheque 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 cheque processing costs while increasing, rather than decreasing, protection against fraud losses.
At Smart Card Expo‘09 Softpro will showcase the latest features SignPlus Edition II. Banks enjoy substantial savings for back-office cheque 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 cheque fraud in a truly cost-effective manner. Softpro has a proven track record with her 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 cheque fraud and has been successfully deployed at many of the world's largest financial institutions since its inception.

Venue Details : Hall no. 7E, Stall no. 104, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, India.
Event: Smart Card Expo 2009, Co-located with BiometricsIndia Expo 2009.
Fair Dated: September 10 12, 2009