Notary Signing Agent: What the Future Holds

What the future of the notary or signing agent holds is unclear. With the increase in identity theft and mortgage fraud the NNA is working with government officials to inact new laws to implement e-notarization. With e-notarization the industry will become more electronically oriented. There will no longer be physical stamps and physical signatures but rather 'all digital'. A document being notarized by a notary will be on screen in a computer and they will have a passworded notary seal and signature which will be accessed from the Secretary of State each time they use it. Such as in the case of the mortgage industry, a notary will sit with the borrower viewing the necessary documents on a computer screen. You know how you sign a signature pad when you use your credit card at the store? Well this is how a borrower would sign, then the notary would access her seal at the SOS Online to notarize that document. All these documents would be at an online secure site. Once signed and notarized the file is saved. At that point the lender can retrieve it to fund the loan. These documents will have code behind the scenes of when each document was signed and since the code tells of any changes made after that date, it is quite fraud proof. Think of it. No longer can the lender ask us to backdate (which is illegal). Also a notary with an expired commission cannot notarize. When the commission expires or is suspended it can no longer be accessed by the notary. In addition, the impersonating notaries will no longer be able to function. It is said and I believe it to be true that total implementation of e-notarization across the nation will be many years off. I believe the states will start by allowing notaries to sign up to be either an e-notary or the normal notary.

Earlier skeptism said that with the onset of e-notarization the notary public would become obsolete. Actually the notary will become more a part of security within our country and abroad. E-notarization will take a higher level of commitment on the part of the notary public, financially and training. There will be training and testing involved to have the e-notarization option available to you. A Notary will have to purchase a laptop, cell phone, wireless internet, webcam to hook to the laptop and a digital program such as Enjoa or Digisign for signature and electronic journal entry storage.

The companies I see at the forefront of this new wave are NNA (National Notary Association), MISMO (Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization)Their mission is to develop, promote, and maintain voluntary electronic commerce standards for the mortgage industry. There are many more but I'll leave that for another time. These as well as many others are working in conjunction with the FBI, CIA, FTC etc to minimize fraud and terrorism.