Spotting forged signatures can be almost impossible. Even with extensive training, humans can miss forgeries. The differences between a well-executed forgery and a legitimate signature are often much too small for the human eye to detect. Luckily, there are signature verification tools.
These tools can help to protect your bank from forgeries. They also save you time by automating the detection process. Keep reading to learn more about signature verification tools and follow the links for more information.
What Is Signature Verification?
Signature verification refers to the process of examining a signature to ensure that it’s legitimate. Banks, intelligence agencies, election officials, and several other types of organizations use signature verification tools to verify people’s identities. Manually or electronically, people at these organizations compare presented signatures with images of reference signatures to look for signs of forgeries.
What Is Automated Signature Verification?
Automated signature verification tools use pattern recognition and geometrical analysis to look for forged signatures. They examine static and dynamic elements of the signature on a check or document, and if they spot discrepancies in how the signature looks or issues with the speed or fluidity of the signature, they flag the check or document for manual review.
Automated signature verification tools save time, reduce the risk of human error, and improve the forgery detection process. These tools look at several elements of the signature, and then, they give it a confidence score. The lower the score, the higher the risk of a forgery. Generally, you can direct the software to request a manual review if the confidence score is below a certain level, and you can adjust this parameter as needed.
How Signature Verification Tools Spot Forgeries
Signature verification tools assess multiple parts of a signature to tell if it’s a potential forgery. They look at the shapes and angles of the signature, but they also assess the speed, pressure, and fluidity of the signature. By examining both static and dynamic elements, these tools improve the detection of forgeries.
How to Spot a Forged Check
When looking for forged checks, your staff can use tried-and-true methods such as checking the depositor’s ID, looking for shakiness in the signature, and manually reviewing the details on the check. But unfortunately, no matter how diligent they are, they will miss some signs of forgery.
Signature verification tools help to make sure that no forged checks slip through the gaps.
How to Detect Forgeries Quickly and Accurately
To improve the signature verification process at your financial institution, you can train your employees to spot the different types of forgeries. You can also consider offline tools that look at static two-dimensional elements of a signature. However, for the best results, you need to use an online signature verification tool that looks at static elements but also analyzes the fluidity of the signature.
Types of Forged Signatures
The three main types of forged signatures include blind forgeries, trace-over forgeries, and skilled forgeries. A blind forgery is when someone signs someone else’s signature without looking at it or trying to replicate it. They just pop on a random signature and hope for the best.
In contrast, a trace-over-forgery, as suggested by its name, is when the forger traces over a legitimate signature. A skilled forgery requires some practice and it closely emulates the victim’s real signature. Manual signature verification can spot blind forgeries as long as there’s a reference signature, but manual processes tend to overlook trace-over and skilled forgeries. Automated signature verification tools can be critical for detecting these types of forgeries.
Banking Applications for Signature Verification
Automatic signature verification tools can scan the signatures on checks, but they can also help you assess signatures on loan documents, business contracts, insurance documents, and more. There are many different banking applications for signature verification tools.
Essential Features of Signature Verification Software
Your signature verification software should be fast, reliable, and intuitive. It should also let you store multiple reference signatures and attach multiple signatures to a single account. So that you can use your software for multiple applications, it should be able to find signatures within images or files.
Mobile Signature Management
Mobile signature management allows you to capture and store reference signatures using mobile tablets. These tools also make it easy for your employees to search for reference signatures, and they seamlessly integrate with existing databases and document management systems.
E-Signature Verification
As e-signatures become more popular, your financial institution also needs strategies for verifying their accuracy. If your bank is implementing e-signing, there are steps you can take to navigate the process safely and successfully. Then, you need to find ways to continually monitor transactions that use e-signatures for signs of fraud or other issues.
Signature Verification Options
We offer a variety of signature verification solutions including the following:
- SENTRY: SigCheck™ provides automated signature verification on checks and a variety of other documents.
- SENTRY: Signature™ displays reference signatures electronically for manual verification.
- SENTRY: SigTab™ helps banks capture signatures electrically.
- SENTRY: DocTab™ improves document management.
However, we can also customize signature verification products to meet the specific needs of our clients.
Custom Signature Verification Tools: Case Study
In 2015, we worked with Top Image Systems to develop a signature verification tool for the Asian-Pacific Regional Center in Singapore. We configured the eFLOW® Automatic Signature Verification Solution to meet the bank’s specific signature mandates, and it was able to automatically scan 4 million checks per year.
Contact Us About Signature Verification Tools
At SQN Banking Systems, we are committed to helping our clients reduce losses related to check fraud and other types of bank fraud. We offer signature verification tools as well as a variety of other tools and solutions. Want to protect your bank against forged checks and other forged documents? Then, contact us today.