Nse.It, Sify Arm In Pact For Digital Signatures

NSE.IT, the wholly owned infotech arm of the National Stock Exchange, has forged an alliance with Safescrypt, a subsidiary of Satyam Infoway, to launch 'Endorsor', a digital signing solution.

Satish Naralkar, chief executive officer, NSE.IT, said: "The tie up would help provide a unique public key infrastructure (PKI)-based signature service, initially targeted at the Indian market, with the securities industry being a focus area. More significantly, digital signatures would now begin to find acceptability at the level of the masses, a segment which had been untouched by this radical development so far."

K Dasaratharaman, managing director, Safescrypt, said: "Though digital signature was legalised in February this year, the usage was extremely restricted to a few entities which used it in business-to-business applications. This was largely due to the lack of technological solutions capable of broadbasing the applicability at the retail level."

Safescrypt is India's first certifying authority (CA) for digital signatures, and is a principal affiliate of Verisign, the world's leading internet trust solutions provider.

'Endorsor' which has been developed by NSE.IT in collaboration with Safecrypt is a browser based application which enables an entity to sign documents digitally, track and ensure document delivery over email, portals or through file transfer processes.

The product which is available in scalable versions has a price ranging from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 15 lakh.

"NSE.IT and Safecrypt will have a shared IPR over the product and we have already envisaged various applications that can be offered to the market once certain legal formalities are complied with," said Naralkar.

"Other than the securities industry, the product finds applications in various market segments including banks, depositories, regulatory authorities, insurance and manufacturing," he added.