EchoSign is now regularly used in over 100 nations across the world.
Our top countries by users, in order, are pretty much what you would expect: the U.S, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, Germany, France, Netherlands, Ireland, Spain and Sweden.
In the short-term, the biggest questions around global e-signatures and e-contracting are around legislation. A basic overview of e-signature law in North America and Europe is here (note: PDF), and please contact support or your EchoSign rep for a more detailed primer and best practices guide to deploying electronic signatures globally.
Beyond legislation though, looking forward a few years, the bigger issue for global electronic signatures is likely going to be how billions of people worldwide interact with and use the internet. The current paradigm is based around email (for notification) to a PC-based web browser (for signing) with a secondary mobile signature option. This works well for the above countries.
However, in much of the developing world, the paradigm is radically different, with mobile devices and mobile connectivity the primary way of accessing the internet. Email in many cases is irrelevant, and SMS dominant. Coupled with that are interesting developments like India's announcement it plans to spend over $5 billion in USD to issue biometric identity cards to its 1.2 billion citizens to enable, among other functions, digital signatures for many of its citizens who in many cases lack the stable broadband connections and ubiquitous PCs we have here in the U.S. and in Europe.
We're laying the groundwork now not only for the way people sign on the web today, but also how they'll be signing in 2013 across the world. Look for more here, with initial steps beginning in our next release in mid-Q3 2009.
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