SPeRS 2.0 was released this week at the Electronic Signatures and Records Association (ESRA) annual meeting. SPeRS, the Standards & Procedures for Electronic Records and Signatures, provides a series of guidelines on how to implement electronic signatures and electronic transactions in general.

The SPeRS 2.0 update focuses primarily on government regulatory developments and changes affecting e-records and e-disclosures that have surfaced over the past eight years since the first version was released. This has become especially important as transactions for services such as banking, insurance, investment and health are happening more frequently on the web and regulatory changes are being made to keep pace with new technologies such as social networking, mobile devices and cloud computing. This update to SPeRS becomes critical to enable organizations to create reliable, secure and enforceable electronic transactions using a process approach such as Silanis’ e-signature process management.

At Silanis, we’ve seen the SPeRS guidelines benefit organizations of all sizes, especially as part of the acquisition or RFP process. First, it is used to evaluate and clarify their own electronic signature process management needs as they prepare to transfer their paper-based processes online. And second, to help determine whether a particular vendor or solution meets their requirements. As a drafting committee member of SPeRS and a contributor to the standards, Silanis’ solutions naturally comply with the guidelines.

SPeRS has also been leveraged by industry associations as a basis for electronic signature standards applying to more specific industry use cases and processes. Examples include the IRI (Insured Retirement Institute) and the MBA (Mortgage Bankers Association). Still, many other industry associations seem to be struggling with the issue of how to promote and standardize the use of electronic signatures. While each industry has its own unique processes, the SPeRS standard is a model that can and should be leveraged across all industries.

SPeRS is a comprehensive guideline that addresses authentication & authority; consent to use electronic records and signatures; agreements, notices and disclosures; electronic-signatures; and records retention. And while the standard was drafted for Financial Services, the overall SPeRS guidelines can be quite useful to organizations in any industry – in my opinion, SPeRS would be a valuable resource for any business seeking to enable straight through processing.

This is especially true for organizations struggling to implement electronic transactions in compliance with the US Federal ESIGN law and the state UETA laws. While these laws are helpful from a legislative point of view (they establish that electronic signatures and electronic records are equivalent to their paper counterparts), they are technology-neutral and do not specify how to best meet the requirements outlined in laws and regulations covered by ESIGN and UETA. That’s where SPeRS steps in.