Addressing the need to keep European data on European soil

eSignLive is now leveraging IBM Cloud SoftLayer’s UK and German data centres to process digital transactions initiated through its cloud electronic signature solution in Europe. This expansion is in line with an announcement made last year to capitalize on IBM Cloud’s growing network of data centres by launching multiple instances to meet in-country data residency requirements and the growing adoption of e-signatures internationally. With the launch of the new European data centres, as well as concurrent data centre launches in Australia, eSignLive offers the most cloud locations globally among the leaders in the e-signature market.

 

“Data residency is a strong driver of cloud software buying decisions in Europe. With eSignLive now hosted on IBM’s global data centre network, we are able to address our customers’ requirements for higher data security, control and compliance in a way that our competitors can’t,” said eSignLive President, Tommy Petrogiannis. “Data residency is particularly important in regulated industries such as banking, insurance, government and healthcare, where visibility into where data resides is necessary for compliance reasons.”

 

E-signatures enable organisations of all sizes across all industries to complete business completely digitally, anytime, anywhere, on any device, while improving the customer experience. Analyst firm Forrester Research identified in a May, 2015 report: “Brief: E-Signature Transactions Topped 210 Million in 2014” that markets such as Europe represent a greenfield due to new legislation that promises to promote e-signature adoption across the region. 

 

In particular, the Electronic Identification and Trust Services for Electronic Transactions in the Internal Market (eIDAS) regulation will replace the existing EU Directive as of July 1, 2016, enabling greater mainstream adoption of e-signatures across Europe. This is due to the uniformity of the regulation, allowing solutions using the Advanced E-Signature and Qualified E-Signature like eSignLive to be used across any of the 28 European Union member states. eIDAS also prevents member states from enacting their own interpretation of the regulation, thereby making it easier to do business digitally throughout Europe.

 

In addition, with the recent repeal of the Safe Harbor agreement and its replacement, the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, some details as to how EU personal data is stored in transactions involving U.S. companies are still being worked out. One of the advantages of using e-signatures within a local data centre is the regional data residency it brings, providing peace of mind that customer and business data will be protected by local laws.

 

It’s important to note that data residency can also be met through either a private cloud instance or an on-premises deployment. eSignLive’s flexible deployment offers all options, including multiple public cloud deployments around the world. eSignLive’s data residency also extends to its 3^rd party apps, including Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SharePoint and Box providing organisations with the flexibility to connect to any global instance of eSignLive.