We are embracing a new era of change and opportunities in Asia. Both consumers and businesses alike are benefitting from the wave of digitalisation as the region paves its way forward towards greater economic growth and prosperity.

As businesses strive to remain competitive, it has become crucial for many to transact their documents digitally; as paper-based processes and traditional wet-ink signatures are inefficient, time-consuming, and complicated.

Globally, the Asia-Pacific region is set to record the fastest growth in the DTM (digital transactions management) market. A combination of the flourishing e-commerce industry, increasing emphasis on mitigating online fraud, and rising security concerns is driving this rapid growth. The region holds great potential for the industry – and I believe that together with business leaders and companies, we can create a better and safer future.

According to PwC’s 2020 Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey, a total of US$42 billion - were recorded over 24 months; part of which could be linked to erroneous or fraudulent contracts. Despite these worrying statistics, fewer than 3 in 10 companies indicated that they were confidently able to implement or upgrade their technology – citing reasons such as costs, limited resources, and a lack of systems as the main obstacles. This paints a stark reality of how underprepared we still are as a whole in having the necessary agility to meet the dynamic security challenges present in the globalised business environment.

In our interactions with enterprise customers and understanding their various pain points, a large part centres around trust in documents and processes, especially for high-value, confidential contracts and agreements. We have all been through that and what’s worse is that when it came to the sign-off stage, existing solutions on the market do not allow us to compare doc, and we are subject to inevitable human errors and overlook that would have its legal ramifications.

A case in point:

• Often when drafting a new contract or updating an existing agreement, version control is often used to identify the development of the document. The version is sent back and forth between the parties during the negotiation stage, before the final version is typically circulated via email to all parties to take note of the “marked-up” and “clean” versions, and where the latter will be sent via a signing platform for sign-offs by respective signing parties A and B.
• The current pain point for Party B is that if he receives this digital document from Party A for sign-off via existing solutions on the market, he is unable to trust that it is indeed the final, agreed version as there is no way for him/her to compare the document.

This is where Dedoco challenges this status quo to provide a solution that overcomes this universal pain point. Under the same scenario mentioned above, if the document is issued over the Dedoco platform, Party B is able to drop the final, agreed version to our ‘Document-Check’ UI to verify the document version. With the document 100%-verified as accurate and true, you can then proceed to sign off on the legal document with full assurance and ease of mind.

In short, the Dedoco platform allows the document to be trusted and verifiable, leveraging on blockchain technology to maintain the integrity of the document, assure our users and protect important business interests.

And the best part? - This feature is made available even on our SaaS web platform for our SME users at the same monthly licensing price. This amplifies our company’s ethos that technologies to build a robust security strategy should not be out of reach for businesses, and instead be affordable and accessible to all.

Original article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/solving-us42-billion-pain-point-agreements-legal-documents-daphne-ng/