National E-Notary Standards in Progress.(mortgage banks)

Philadelphia -- During the mortgage process there are several documents that have to be notarized. GTE Federal Credit Union told NMN that this is the main hindrance of electronic mortgage adoption, but Pennsylvania has moved to change the landscape by enacting an e-notary system that it hopes will be the basis of a forthcoming national standard.

Specifically, the Pennsylvania Department of State and a special team of the commonwealth's county recorders have come together to develop what they are calling the country's first National eNotary Registry and Electronic Notary Seal Program, which allows for real-time authentication of notaries and secure online delivery of verified electronic notary seals.

This statewide electronic notarization system was launched last week at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The statewide system is aimed at streamlining business transactions between government officials and businesses, as well as increasing protection for the public against forgery and fraud.

Pennsylvania's Electronic Notary Seal Program maintains the fundamental and protective components of notarization, and incorporates real-time authentication of notaries via the National eNotary Registry.

In order to aide them in this process, county recorders turned to the National Notary Association to form this system of electronic transfer.

"The background behind this is such that we've worked with Pennsylvania to manage the issuance of a certificate to a particular party in the mortgage process," said Richard Hansberger, director of e-notarization at the National Notary Association. "What's been key in all this is that the county recorders have been pushing for it. They wanted to bring notaries into that process to continue to move toward fully digital docs.

"We've set this up as a best practice model where industry, government and notaries will agree that this provides a benefit to everyone," he said. "We'll put a digital document into the notary's hands so they can digitally sign it with as many applications as possible. We've provided a digital certificate that we hope to fan out into a national standard.