Several Founders, Co-Founders, CXO Bankers, CXO Fintech professional & people who participated in the ePanel discussions:
- Mr. Raghu Veer Dendukuri, Product Owner, Intandemly
- Mr. Neeraj Chandra, Head of Operations & Technology, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank
- Mr. Mohammad Hassan, Project Management Consultant
- Mr. Sanjay Swamy, Managing Partner & Co-Founder, PRIME Venture Partners
- Mr. Ravi Agarwal, Senior Manager IT, Punjab National Bank
- Mr. Vikas R Panditrao, Co-founder, Forum of Industry and Academic Knowledge Sharing (FIAKS)
- Many other CEO/CXO Bankers & Fintech professionals on FIAKS Forum requested to remain anonymous
Most of Chartered Accountant firms ask founders/CFOs of the companies to keep DIGITAL SIGNATURES in their custody asserting that it’s not easy to file various compliances or GST & other returns. FIAKS community member questions risk associated with keeping this DSC and possible indemnification to be provided by CA firms.
He says shouldn’t it be made mandatory for CA firms to give blanket indemnity to the founders that they will be responsible for all incorrect filing or any possible wrongdoing? Let’s try to understand more about DSC
What is DSC? DSC (Digital Signature Certificate) is an electronic document which contains a digital signature which is the digital equivalent to physical signatures. It serves as a proof of identity and enables to access information and varied services on the internet and most importantly sign and authenticate documents digitally.
Types of DSC:
- Class 2 DSC– This is used by individuals, organizations and can be downloaded after verification only which is based on a trusted and pre-verified database. They are used for GST filling and other Income Tax Documents, MCA e-filing.
- Class 3 DSC– This is of the highest level and is issued only when the Registration Authority carries out identity verification of registrant. This is more secure and safe as compared to Class 2 DSC. Where huge money and confidential information is involved this is the preferred certificate. Online trading and e-commerce are the main areas where this type of DSC is used. They are generally used in E-tendering, E-procurement, Patent, and trademark e-filing, MCA e-filing, etc
The root cause is the amount of crazy insensible compliance. One of the community members brought forward his view that if you keep the digital signatures with you then it takes a lot of time which can be better utilized for business/product development. Hence many founders keep DSC with CAs giving them blanket authority to use *WITHOUT* any formal acknowledgment from CAs.
Some viewpoints which favor DSC to be kept in custody of CAs:
- Entrepreneurs will do business or keep spending time on using DSC randomly leaving important engagements. Only entrepreneurs understand how painful the process is. One of the FIAKS community members pointed out that DSC was not even compatible while using the MacBook couple of months backs. However, now they have allowed its usage in Macbook computers(Below is the screenshot)
- Most of the entrepreneurs leave digital signatures with CAs, since they trust them and since compliance activity can happen, after they give the required data, but without them becoming the reason for any possible waiting time (when they are holding the digital signature with themselves), even though not a suggested practice, people followed it similarly back in that time.
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