SignBANK NG

SignBANK is a

client-server-based system for automating signature

retrieval and verification in banks. This is a high-tech

solution for the age-old manual procedure.

The main screen allows

user to retrieve and modify accounts by account number (a

unique key), customer number, or signatory’s name.

An advanced search option allows you to do bulk

retrievals by specifying a file containing multiple

account numbers. Such a file can be created using the

Create Account List feature. The operator can now proceed

to verify signatures by selecting the image display

option in the main screen. One can also specify these

criteria directly using the advanced search option

Account

creation

Account creation is fairly

straightforward. You start by specifying basic

information, such as the account number, account name,

customer number, customer name, account details, and the

status of the account (whether passed/dormant). Using

rules, you can link signature display with transaction

amounts. For example, suppose a bank account has three

signatories. A hypothetical set of rules might specify

that any one signature is required for cheques upto Rs

10,000, any two for cheques between Rs 10,000 and Rs

50,000, and all three for cheques larger than this. To

implement this, you would specify three rules in the

rules information database. After this, you select a rule

and the images associated with the rule. SignBANK can now

automatically filter signatures based on the transaction

amount specified at the time of retrieving the image.

Enough security is built into the system to control

account information.

Users

and security

The security model used by

SignBANK is simple but powerful, and is based on the

concept of user groups. It contains 29 discrete

functions, such as add image, add/modify customer, pass

account/customer, generate reports, and the like. It

allows administrator to create user groups and grant any

combination of these 29 functions to the user group.

Users can only be created under a particular user group.

They inherit the access rights of the group under which

they are created.

Image

capture

SignBANK can acquire

images (of signatures) from three sources:

TWAIN-compliant desktop or handheld scanners, pen-based

writing pads, such as Inforite Writing Pads, or from

image files in industry standard formats, such as BMP,

TIFF, GIF, JPEG, and so on. Scanning can be eased by

defining the image-card size. There is no limit to the

number of image-card sizes that can be defined. Each

scanned signature can also be assigned an expiry date.

SignBANK ships with a Bulk Capture Utility that allows

signatures to be scanned in batch mode.

Summing

up

SignBANK evidently does

what it is meant to do, though the interface could do

with improvement. Win NT is required to run this

software. Users should investigate whether their existing

software vendors are willing and able to integrate

SignBANK into existing applications using the SignBANK

API and OLE controls.