At Tractis we started by offering electronic signature for contracts, we went on to identity verification, next we added electronic certification services in the cloud and then solutions for the massive deployments of smart card readers.

As the number of services we offer increases, it becomes increasingly evident the need to organize them so we can communicate, as clear as possible, the value of each service.

The main page of our new website offers you a summary of all our services. You will see there that each “Product Family” and each “Product” have their own section.

Today we are launching the new website for Tractis Contracts. There you will find a wealth of additional information, both in English and Spanish, about our most veteran service. From a description of the main characteristics, to a tour describing the most important features, different integration methods to add Tractis Contracts to your website and pricing.

We encourage you to visit and share with us any questions or suggestions for improvement.

From day one all our product families (Identity, Signatures, Webservices and Hardware) have been available in three languages: Spanish, Catalan and English.

From today you can also visit the Tractis commercial website in English. All you have to do is to use the language selector you will find on the top right corner of some pages (see image below) or the one at the bottom of all pages.

As we mentioned in November, when bringing out the English version of the Tractis Terms and Policies, we are working to have full multi-language functionality, not just for our products, but also for our commercial website and other marketing materials. Likewise we are working to expand the information and make more of languages available on our website.

Any comment or suggestion for improvement will be most welcome.

You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power — he’s free again.

- The First Circle (1968). Chapter 17. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

At Tractis we are working in an internationalization project to make our website, and not only Tractis services, accesible in several languages​​.

We have started our translation work with the legal documentation. Starting today, you can see the following documents, in Spanish and English:

• Terms of use: Spanish | English.
• Legal notice: Spanish | English.
• Privacy Policy: Spanish | English.
• Validation Policy: Spanish | English.
• Timestamping Policy: Spanish | English.
• Long Term Archive Policy: Spanish | English.

Soon, we will be enabling English translations for the rest of our commercial web site.

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

- Enrique V. Act IV. Scene III. William Shakespeare.

We have decided to make our monthly subscription Plans still more attractive. Besides enjoying fees up to 30% lower, free clickwrap signatures, unlimited users and APIs, as of today, you will get free readers also when you contract your Plan.

The number of free readers that you will get varies with the Plan you contract:

• Basic Plan (9,99 €/month): 1 courtesy reader.
• Startup Plan (49 €/month): 3 courtesy readers.
• Business Plan (199 €/month): 10 courtesy readers.
• Enterprise Plan (599 €/month): 30 courtesy readers.

This promotion applies only to new Plans and is limited to one Reader Pack per client and Plan. The reader model you will receive will be the Tractis Slim Reader , a reader compatible with all operating systems, ultra slim design and with an extremely low error rate (0,07%). The procedure for getting the readers is simple: once you contract your monthly subscription Plan, you will get an email with a link to place your order and enter the address where you want your courtesy readers delivered. You will receive them within 24-48 hours.

As always, there is no time commitment to the Plan. You may cancel when you want. For example, it is perfectly acceptable to contract your Plan just to try it, get the free readers and discontinue it the next month. Easy, immediate and no questions asked.

We are aware that, in many cases, the value of the readers exceeds the first month fee. No problem. We are confident that, once you experience the advantages of operating on-line, with zero paperwork, zero to and from, zero queuing and zero waiting, you will not go back.

We encourage you to try the Tractis Plans. You will get everything you need to start benefiting from the DNIe, using the most advanced e-commerce platform and without risking anything.

At the end of 2011 we created “Tractis Hardware”, a new family of Tractis services aimed at promoting the massive deployment of smart card readers in all the countries where we operate.

We began with the opening of the Tractis Store, our on-line store. Next came the offering of readers at heavily discounted prices to political initiatives and start-ups. Today we take things one step forward by facilitating the acquisition of readers at low cost.

Discover the new Tractis “Reader Packs”

As from today your business or association can acquire “reader packs” on the Tractis Store and obtain free readers with every purchase.

We have started with two reader packs: the 10+1 Pack and the 100+20 Pack. Obviously, you can keep on buying readers one by one at a price of €19,99, VAT and express courier delivery included.

10+1 Pack

With every purchase of a 10 Tractis Slim Readers Pack (€199,90) you get 1 free reader.

This represents a unit cost of €18,17 per reader, or 1 free reader for every 10 bought.

100+20 Pack

With every purchase of a 100 Tractis Slim Readers Pack (€1999,00) you get 20 free readers.

This represents a unit cost of €16,65 per reader, or 1 free reader for every 5 bought.

As with every other item in the Tractis store, the new “Reader Packs” are compatible with all operating systems, their prices include VAT and delivery and are sent by express courier within 24 hours.

In December, 2011, we announced the launch of Tractis ProBono, a Tractis initiative geared to promoting the use of electronic certification among political and social change movements and initiatives.

Tractis ProBono grows

We are very happy with the feed-back received and the way ProBono has been received and used for political issues. We have decided to broaden Tractis ProBono reach to include not just political initiatives but, also, startups.

Thanks to Tractis ProBono, as of today, any startup can benefit from the free use of all Tractis services and acquire intelligent card readers at discount prices or completely for free.

What kind of businesses can benefit?

The definition of a “startup” given by Steve Blank is probably the best: “a temporary organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model“. Although almost perfect conceptually, it is not very useful for us to determine in practice what kind of businesses can enjoy Tractis services for free and which cannot. We need to settle down on some criterion that does not lend itself to argument.

For Tractis ProBono purposes, we have decided to consider a “startup” any business with less than 10 employees and yearly revenue under € 100,000, regardless of their date of establishment.

Rights and obligations

The benefits of joining Tractis ProBono have been mention already: services and readers discounted or free.

As opposed to the rest of Tractis users, startups admitted under Tractis ProBono are not subject to Tractis reasonable use Policy, they can use Tractis services for free without limit. This means, Users, APIs and unlimited transactions.

The obligations consist of respecting the Tractis attribution Policy and giving Tractis permission to use the name of your startup as a reference.

You can find the updated text regulating from now Tractis ProBono on the Tractis ProBono terms.

How do I enroll?

If you meet the requirements to participate in Tractis ProBono, the enrollment process is fast and simple. A legal representative of your business, or the entrepreneur behind the project (should the company not be formed yet) has to complete and sign electronically the “Tractis ProBono Application”.

Once the application has been reviewed and checked that the conditions for participation are met, we from Tractis will sign electronically the document also, so it becomes binding for both parties.

Final words

It is for us a pleasure to extend the ProBono program to promote and facilitate entrepreneurship.

Crisis or no crisis, the number of electronic certificates does not stop growing worldwide. Just last week Spain announced that it had passed the 29 million mark of DNIe issued. With all that is befalling us these days, we think it would be a great shame that entrepreneurs with ideas for new and innovative services using electronic certification could not make them happen for lack of resources.

Not a single one of these ideas should remain untried.

We always overestimate the [technological] change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.

- Bill Gates, Microsoft founder.

Equifax and Tractis have signed a collaboration agreement with mutual exclusivity to develop and sale innovative solutions that boost the credit market.

About Equifax: world leader in credit scoring

The assessment and rating of credit risk or “credit scoring” comprises a number of statistical tools and techniques that faced with a credit application make possible to evaluate its risk and determine its viability. Pretty much all banks, insurance companies, phone operators, utilities and the like rely on credit scoring for their daily operations. With over 6,500 employees, a direct presence in 17 countries and providing services in some 50, Equifax is the global leader in information solutions in the credit risk industry. Just in Spain, Equifax has over 150 staff, provides services to more than 400 businesses in the financial sector and more than 1,500 SMBs, and handle over 1.5 billion requests per year.

Collaboration agreement with mutual exclusivity

Equifax and Tractis began conversations more than one year ago. Both parties had a very ambitious stated objective: capitalize on new technology enabled opportunities that would create new and powerful credit assessment and reporting solutions. It has been a year full of ideas and interesting discussions, personally most stimulating from an intellectual standpoint. We explored the latest in identity verification, expression of consent, decision rules, workflows, data gathering and optimization of every phase in the credit lifecycle (acceptance, servicing, recovery) focused on achieving the greatest  immediacy, automation and security that the current state of technology allows. Last January the 23^rd both parties formalized the relationship with by entering into a mutually exclusive collaboration agreement: Equifax undertakes to use Tractis as their exclusive provider of electronic certification services and, on their part, Tractis agrees to use Equifax as their exclusive provider of credit reports.

For Equifax, this collaboration represents an powerful way to increase the value of their existing offerings. For Tractis, it is an excellent opportunity to develop expertise in the intersection of identity, data and business intelligence working side by side with the industry leader. For both, it gives us the means to close the circle and provide a complete solution, with an international footprint, in the large number of countries that today are currently undergoing massive e-ID deployments.

Our first product: Instant granting of loans

Today we announce the first result of our collaboration: e-ID based instant granting of loans. The customer, whether on the web or on a store, at an ATM or a bank branch, signs the loan application with their e-ID and gives their consent to the financial institution to investigate their current financial standing (positions, overdue debts, pending claims, etc.). With this authorization, the identity is verified and the application goes through Equifax decision engine. Within few minutes, the customer knows whether the loan has been granted or denied.

A process that up until now could take days, is now done instantly. Bureaucracy and responnse time are drastically reduced, providing the market with a full service that allows to instantly evaluate the risks associated with the granting of financial products, with benefits for both financial institutions and users. The customer leaves the bank with the loan moneys in his/her account, the store with their home appliance, or the website with their computer financed. Paperless and all in a few minutes. Just with their e-ID. This pioneering initiative is made possible thanks to the integration of the Equifax InterConnect® and  Tractis technology platforms. The final solution:

• Allows to evaluate all aspects of the lending process.
• Includes tools and platforms that automate financial risk assessment, connection to various sources of data, identity verification and documents execution which has been traditionally done on paper (expression of consent, product contracts, etc) .
• Is highly configurable.
• Can be delivered to the end customer through web pages, POS, ATM or bank branches.
• Offers high usability, allowing the customer to use their electronic ID without having to install drivers on their computer.
• Works with more than 70 electronic certificates in 15 countries.

While we do not expect a media  effect on the level the Tuenti announcement had, we see this launch as having great impact in the financial, insurance, telecom and utilities industries. More so in the consumer lending companies whose business is to finance purchases in stores, and where providing an immediate response to financing needs means making a sale or losing it.

The intersection between Identity, Data and Business intelligence

Doing e-commerce with security entails not only services that can verify the real ID and obtain proof of consent on-line, but also to have up to date information and trustworthy decision making mechanisms in place. One without the other solves only a part of the problem. The agreement between Equifax and Tractis is a a first step forward in a critical and relevant area for the financial sector: the intersection between Identity, Data and Business intelligence.

Everybody talks about maximizing growth while minimizing risk. Knowing the relevant certified identity attributes, whether they reside inside the electronic certificate (i.e.: name, sex, age, occupation…) or someplace else (i.e. payroll, bad debt status, telephony spending during the last 3 months, house valuation, etc.), in an instantaneous, efficient, low cost and actionable fashion, while guaranteeing a scrupulous respect to personal free will and privacy  and to applicable law, makes all the difference and is critical to acquire more clients, faster and with lower fraud. A really disruptive katana.

Both, the Equifax and the Tractis teams are really excited about this collaboration. We see this agreement as the first step in the very promising and highly relevant area of the intersection between identity and data. We are already at work on new products, some of which will see the light very soon. Other will take longer, as they reflect our vision of where the ball will be in 5 years time.