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.