The Softpro Group was a specialized vendor in the niche of systems for capture and verification of handwritten

signatures A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a Handwriting, handwritten (and often Stylization, stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and ...

- one segment of

Biometrics Biometrics are body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics. Biometric authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control. It is also used to identify in ...

Kofax Kofax Inc. is an Irvine, California-based intelligent automation software provider. Founded in 1985, the company's software allows businesses to automate and improve business workflows by simplifying the handling of data and documents. Since 20 ...

plc acquired Softpro on September 1, 2014. The company is based in

Böblingen Böblingen (; Swabian German, Swabian: ''Beblenga'') is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, seat of Böblingen (district), Böblingen District. Sindelfingen and Böblingen are Geographic contiguity, contiguous. History Böblingen was found ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

with local subsidiaries in North America (

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), the United Kingdom (

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

), Asia-Pacific (

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

, India (

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

and Latin America (

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

). The group employs an international staff of 70 people.

Products

Softpro has two major product segments: the "eSign Workflow" and "Fraud Prevention Solutions" The "eSign Workflow" product line provides solutions for securing the authenticity and integrity of documents within electronic processes, such as those required for legal contracts. For this purpose, a unique signature technology is used to extract and evaluate both the static and dynamic (biometric) characteristics of handwritten signatures. * Software Development Kit SignWare * Document Security Software SignDoc * Signature Capturing Device SignPad "Fraud Prevention Solutions" allow to detect and prevent fraud in paper-based processes (such as payment transactions, in particular

cheque fraud Cheque fraud (Commonwealth English), or check fraud (American English), refers to a category of criminal acts that involve making the unlawful use of cheques in order to illegally acquire or borrow funds that do not exist within the account balan ...

), as well as increasing operational efficiency using signature management and verification solutions. * Signature Database SignBase * Automatic Signature Verification SignCheck

Company history

The company was founded in 1983 by Heinz Reschke. It initially developed individual software solutions for various industries. Visual comparison of signatures supported by PCs was started in 1987, triggered by growing demand from major financial institutions. Shortly afterwards the development of automatic signature verification started along with IBM's labs in nearby Schönaich and APP Informatik Davos from Switzerland. The automatic verification is based on a neural network and fuzzy logic. The first automatic verification went into production in 1994 at

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. Intellectual property rights for the automatic signature verification were acquired from IBM in 1998. In recent years SOFTPRO extended its product range through a check fraud prevention suite branded FraudOne and products to create

electronic signatures An electronic signature, or e-signature, is data that is logically associated with other data and which is used by the signatory to sign the associated data. This type of signature has the same legal standing as a handwritten signature as long as i ...

based on the use and verification of dynamic (biometric) characteristics of signatures.

References

{{Reflist Software companies of Germany Companies based in Baden-Württemberg Böblingen Electronic signature providers