VietNamNet Bridge – Enterprises, from manufacturers to traders, commercial banks to securities companies all think that they need to use digital signature services. However, they are still worried about the security of the services.

All the businessmen who attended the workshop “digital signature and finance institutions” held several days ago, said that they need to use digital signatures in the near future. It is clear that when using digital signatures instead of normal signatures, enterprises will be able to save the money spent on printing and traveling, and they will be able to improve the efficiency of document management, thus improving the efficiency of enterprises.

A market taking shape

Le Ngoc Duc, Director of the Vietnam Data Communication Company VDC, said that after one year of providing digital signature services, the company has carried out many big projects, such as integrating digital signatures into electronic tax declarations for more than 10,000 enterprises, or integrating digital signatures into electronic customs transactions for more than 300 enterprises.

Duc believes that besides those enterprises, the companies operating in the fields of finance and banking, or securities companies would be the “candy land” for digital signature service providers. As for the groups of clients, the hourly frequency of transactions is very high. Meanwhile, the number of securities companies and commercial banks is very big. Especially, commercial banks have branches spreading throughout the country.

However, to date, only some of them have become clients of VDC, including the State Securities Commission, the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HCM City Stock Exchange, IVB Bank and Vietnam-Russia Bank.

According to Ngo Tuan Anh, Director of Bkav Telecom, one of the five companies licensed by the Ministry of Information and Communication to provide the service of certifying digital signatures, said if considering personal income tax declaration alone, one would see that 18 million clients need to use digital signatures, and 300,000 clients need to use Internet banking services.

Having realized the high potentials of the digital signature service market, Bkav Telecom and some licensed companies have poured a lot of money into developing their services and pushing up marketing campaigns.

“In the near future, it will be nearly compulsory for individuals and businesses to use online public services, such as declaring taxes online, or making customs declarations online. Therefore, the digital signature service will have a substantial room to develop,” Anh said.

Worries still existing

The procedures for registering and using digital signatures are very simple. Clients just need to for register services with the service providers, fill in the given forms and provide necessary documents (the copies of business registration certificates, or identity cards).

After the registration, the service providers will provide clients digital certificates and keys to create digital signatures stored in specific devices, which could be USB Token or Smartcard.

Despite the clear procedures, many banks and commercial banks still have doubts about the procedures. Especially, they have many questions relating to security: Can the authenticity of digital signatures be ensured? How will the disputes be settled?

Duc explained that digital signatures cannot be forged. Developed countries have been using digital certification as legal proofs for a long time. Moreover, licensed service providers all commit to their responsibility for the authenticity, the secrecy and consistency of digital signatures.

However, according to Duc, in the immediate time, the enterprises that have a demand for using digital signatures need to draw up overall application strategies for themselves that could be divided into different development phases. They need to clarify the scopes of applications, the budget and other specifications. At first, they can use services in a small scale before using services in a bigger scale.

C. V