The need for in-country data residency is high, says e-signature provider eSignLive.

Leveraging IBM Cloud SoftLayer data centres in Sydney and Melbourne will open as a result of the need for the Australian market to secure a leadership position with the most cloud locations globally.

A recent poll conducted by Galaxy Research found that more than 50 per cent of Australians were concerned that their information stored in cloud services may not be secure with an Australian jurisdiction and therefore not protected by Australian privacy laws.

According to eSignLive President Tommy Petrogiannis, mobile is the channel of choice for a majority of new business applications, and the regulation surrounding it must be clear for users to apply it. For businesses however, laws are clear, meaning that digitisation is now more common than before.

“Many Australian organisations are enabling digital transformation strategies because the benefits and the laws are clear. Organisations and their customers understand that not only is this technology more secure than ‘ink and paper’, it is also more cost and time efficient and ultimately provides a better customer experience, delivering faster approval times for applications and reducing error rates on forms,” said Petrogiannis.

“Addressing the needs of the Australian market is in line with an announcement made last year to capitalise on IBM Cloud’s network of data centres, support the growing adoption of e-signatures internationally and meet in-country data residency requirements.”

General manager of cloud services for IBM, Jim Comfort, was confident that IBM centres would deliver a much needed avenue for reassurance for Australians.

“Our global network of IBM Cloud data centre locations, along with on-the-ground expertise, will provide customers with the best support for for the most reliable availability, security and performance for their local and worldwide business transactions,” he said.

Chief executive officer Philip Copeland, of partnering technology group Avoka is confident that working with eSign Live will help in the digitisation of businesses.

“Avoka’s goal is to help banks, wealth managers and insurance carriers digitally transform their businesses, making customer engagement easier and increasing customer satisfaction. A point of friction in this process has been keeping the process electronic,” he said.

“Together we are eliminating these issues.”