Articles & Insights

Most countries have laws that permit electronic signatures. But few have built the institutional infrastructure to make those laws meaningful in practice. Taiwan's 2024 reforms offer an instructive model for how to achieve this.

The e-signature market has a brand recognition problem. Most companies default to DocuSign or Adobe Sign because those names are familiar, assume compliance is covered, and move on. For routine business contracts, that's often fine. But if you're in a regulated industry, operating across borders, or signing high-value agreements, there's a good chance you're leaving significant legal risk on the table and paying premium prices for the privilege.

Digital transformation is entering its next chapter. Across industries, businesses are overhauling core functions in pursuit of faster operations, tighter security, and workflows built to keep pace with a rapidly changing environment. Yet one critical process has been left behind. Document signing, despite being the final step in almost every high-stakes business transaction, hasn't seen meaningful innovation in years.

In our previous article, we explored whether human assets can be fully digitalized or tokenized, identifying two major barriers: authentic intention and legal recognition. Without a human-centric verification mechanism, digital signing opens the door to identity fraud, sloppy private key management, and legally baseless asset transfers. When trust and legal protection are missing, asset digitalization hits a wall.

Electronic signatures come in multiple formats; each designed for different use cases. This article compares the widely used PAdES format with the XAdES format that powers SelfieSign's SVS (Selfie Video Signature) file, exploring how these technologies differ and what makes each suited to different scenarios.