15.06.2018
Share it
Bank Millennium launches e-guarantee for businesses
An e-guarantee, as opposed to a traditional bank guarantee on paper, is issued in electronic form with use of secure electronic qualified signature. A business may download the guarantee quickly and comfortably in the Millenet internet banking system. The Bank may also send the guarantee to an e-mail address provided by the customer, also a counterparty’s e-mail address.
- Digitalisation affects almost every sector. More and more services are being provided electronically. Big changes are also taking place in banking for companies. Companies may now use many digital solutions; increasingly often paper documents are replaced by their electronic counterparts. All this is intended to simplify the circulation of documents, to shorten order processing times, to assure greater transparency and reduce costs. Moreover thanks to e-guarantees a company can bid for public procurement contracts where it is a requirement to submit all documents in electronic format. – Joanna Zembalska, Head of Trade Finance Sub-unit in Bank Millennium, said.
Business customers of Bank Millennium can request an e-guarantee either online in the Millenet for Companies system (Trade Finance module) or traditionally on paper. The electronically signed guarantee document will be sent by the bank to the e-mail address provided in the request (this may be the address of the customer or counterparty – beneficiary of the guarantee), or will be downloadable in the Millenet system.
Electronic signatures can be checked to see if they are genuine directly in the e-guarantee file with use of Adobe Reader functionality. After clicking on the “Signature Panel” button and then “Check all if genuine” the signatures will be verified – a message confirming that they are genuine will appear. The fast and easy way to check the signatures is certainly a major convenience for guarantee beneficiaries when they check the guarantor’s signature. A list of the bank’s employees authorised to sign e-guarantees is available on www.bankmillennium.pl (access path: Products -> Trade Finance -> Guarantees -> E-guarantees). Additionally upon the customer’s request Bank Millennium may send confirmation of granting an e-guarantee in the form of a SWIFT message to the beneficiary’s bank.
In legal terms a guarantee issued in file format and signed with use of a qualified electronic signature constitutes a declaration of will submitted in electronic form and according to Polish legislation is treated on a par with a paper-based guarantee, which was signed by hand.