It’s no secret that professionals all over the world sign various documents daily. Whether it’s a notice board in your school or a file in your office, signatures are quite ubiquitous. There was a time when signatures meant doing signatures using pen and paper. If you’re wondering what the different types of signatures for your name are, you’d be surprised to know that there are plenty of ways to sign a document.
In this article, we aim to discuss every popular type of signature. Apart from that, we’d also guide you on which signature you should use and why. Let’s delve further!
Wet Signature
Wet signature is the traditional type of signature. When you use a pen to manually sign a paper or document, it is called a wet signature. Like other kinds of signatures, the main purpose of wet signatures is to indicate that the signatory has read, understood, and agreed to the contents of that document.
It’s said that wet signatures were first practised in 1677 when a law was passed in the UK, which states that every contract should be written and signed in order to have legal standing.
Since then, every contract was signed manually until the invention of electronic signatures.
Considering the fact that a wet signature could be forged, it’s a good rule of thumb to do a wet signature in the presence of at least two or three people that you trust. A wet signature could be your nickname, real name (first or second name), your company’s name, or even a symbol or mark.
Electronic Signature
An electronic signature, also known as e-signature, is another widely used type of signature. It has gained so much popularity lately and organizations across the globe have switched to it. It’s an online version of your wet signatures. In other words, it’s an illustration of your wet signatures in digital form. A scanned picture of a signatory’s wet signatures or a bio-metric signing on signing hardware are a few electronic signatures examples.
As technology grows, signing documents has become more convenient. Gone are the days when you had to spend a great deal of your time signing the documents manually. The most obvious benefit of electronic signatures is that they save your time and money. The thing with the wet signature is that you have to buy pen and ink week in, week out, or you’d be caught short. Thankfully, that’s not the case with electronic signatures.
In the light of the differences described by the EIDAS regulations (Electronic Identification, Authentication, and Trust Services regulations) in 2016, let’s discuss the types of electronic signatures briefly:
- Simple Electronic Signature: In simple electronic signatures, you don’t have to go through any hassle of verifying your identity. Predictably then, they are not as secure as the other types of electronic signatures. You can go for these signatures, but it’s recommended not to trust them in case of sensitive documents as they are more vulnerable to fraudulent activities.
- Advanced Electronic Signature: Next, we have the advanced electronic signature. In this type, you have to provide some verification of your identity. Generally, the signatory is verified by certificates, which are often delivered via a delivery service. They are safer than simple electronic signatures, as they require verification.
Digital Signature
A digital signature, also known as the qualified electronic signature, is the most secure type of electronic signatures. They take the verification a step further to comply with the eIDAS regulations. All the details about the signatory are saved in these signatures. If you want your signing process to be the safest, then you can’t go wrong with the digital signatures, plain and simple!
Our Verdict
There are times when wet signatures or electronic signatures are the only options. But if the choice is yours, we recommend using electronic signatures.
If you own a company and rely on wet signatures only, you are very likely to lag behind, as signing documents manually consumes a lot of time. Switching to electronic signatures will save time for you that you can invest in doing something productive. And yes, unlike wet signatures, electronic signatures can hardly be forged. This is why most organizations have replaced wet signatures with electronic signatures already.
Formats
Talking about e signature format, electronic signatures nowadays are compatible with pretty much every file format. Although PDF is the most widely used one, you can sign documents of other formats as well. The same goes for the digital signature formats. You can also save your wet signatures in PDF format. Many software such as Adobe Acrobat, Autograph signature app, are available that allow you to save your wet signatures.
Lunarpen- A Name of Trust
There are dozens of websites and software that offer electronic signatures, none better than the Lunarpen. It’s a company that offers the safest and seamless signing experience. Individuals and companies all over the world use Lunarpen to sign documents every day - and for good reasons. This entire procedure is quite meticulous for users’ convenience. A major part of the reason why it has won the trust of professionals is that it’s safe and easy. The signing process requires the signatory to confirm his identity via a private code.
The collected signatures at Lunarpen are in compliance with all the regulations.
From One-drive to Dropbox, you can connect your account to many applications. Apart from that, it comes with a highly advanced feature that helps you track the document and see the progress. Sign up now for a free account on Lunarpen and take your signing up a notch.
Final Thoughts
Wet signatures and electronic signatures are the two main types of signatures. While the wet signature is the traditional type of signature, an electronic signature is its digital form.
Organizations can save a great deal of their time by switching to electronic signatures.
Lunarpen is a well-known company that offers electronic signatures. Tons of innovative features at Lunarpen make the signing process an absolute breeze.