What is electronic signing?
Electronic signing means executing a document on screen, with no paper, no ink and no courier. The signer opens it on a device, confirms who they are, and applies a signature recorded with the evidence of that confirmation.
Indian law recognizes electronic records and electronic signatures. Most commercial paperwork can be signed this way, and a narrow set of instruments is excluded. Let the document decide the method.
How the Electronic Sign API works
Electronic Sign handles OTP-led signing for documents that need no Aadhaar eSign and no digital signature certificate.
Your application sends the document and the signer's details. The signer enters the one-time password sent to the verified channel, and the signature is applied. The signed file comes back with an audit trail of the event.
Signing stops being a separate errand. You raise, sign and file a sanction letter, a rental agreement or an onboarding pack inside the journey that produced it.
Electronic Sign, Aadhaar eSign or a DSC?
The three sit side by side in this catalog because they answer different questions. Confirm your choice with your own legal counsel for the document in front of you.
- Electronic Sign suits high-volume, lower-risk paperwork a person can sign on a phone: HR letters, vendor onboarding packs, service acknowledgments, consents and internal approvals. Identity rests on control of the verified channel, backed by the audit trail.
- Aadhaar eSign suits documents where the signer's identity should be tied to an Aadhaar-based authentication as they sign, and where the file needs a certificate-backed signature. Lending, insurance and other supervised onboarding journeys usually land here.
- Digital Signature Certificate suits a named individual signing for an organization with a certificate issued to that person. That covers statutory and corporate filings, tenders, and documents an authorized signatory executes in an official capacity.
Which documents you can sign electronically
Most commercial paperwork works: agreements, letters, declarations, acknowledgments, consents and internal approvals between parties who have agreed to sign electronically.
A narrower set is commonly excluded and still needs a wet signature. Negotiable instruments, powers of attorney, trust deeds, wills and documents transferring immovable property are the ones teams discover late. Check the document type against your own legal advice before you build a flow around it.
Who signs with Electronic Sign
- Lending and NBFC: sanction letters, mandates and the declarations that travel with a loan file.
- Insurance: proposal declarations, nominee forms and claim acknowledgments, with no branch visit.
- Staffing and gig platforms: offer letters, engagement terms and conduct acknowledgments in remote onboarding.
- Real estate: rental agreements, brokerage terms and society paperwork for parties in different cities.
- Healthcare: patient consent and treatment acknowledgments recorded during admission.
- Logistics and fleet: carrier agreements and driver engagement terms across a partner network.
Where OTP signing fits in your product
Connect the flow to a loan origination system, an HR platform, a CRM, a claims workflow or an internal dashboard. A document is then raised and signed in one place.
Plan for the signer who does not finish. Signing runs asynchronously. Hold the pending state and treat completion as an event.
Consent rules for an OTP signature
A signature has to be the signer's own act. Show the document before you request the one-time password, make the signer's intent clear on screen, and never sign on another person's behalf.
Store the signed file and its audit trail together, for as long as your record-retention policy requires. A signature separated from its evidence is hard to explain months later.