In Thailand, the Internet is accessible atleast by half of the people. Many transactions have been shifted to online transactions. According to the Civil laws, any agreements that have the value greater than 20,000 baht requires a contract to be made or the case cannot be charged in the court. As the transaction on the Internet goes fast, people are tired to wait for the post to exchange their contracts. That is why we have got many fraud problems. One of the problems of using contract paper is that it is costly as two parties may need to meet each other. Furthermore, the paper-based contract requires several days or a week to complete as it is sent by post and sign. Actually, there is a flaw in doing this by post as the witness actually does not see the parties sign. To help reducing the fruad transaction, Thai smartcontract comes to make the online transaction lawful by implementing electronic signature.
Electronic signature typically associates with the document file while it represents the actual person intention. Thai smartcontract is an online service that helps the user legally sign the document. The service basically make use of the blockchain and target to Thais. After signing the document, the users will get all the required documents used to confirm the intention of all the parties. If anything goes wrong, the user may download the Certificate of Completion and the required documents to charge the cheating party. The main purpose of Thai smartcontract is that everything done in the system must be lawful. Therefore, we can only focus the system to a specific country as the laws in each country are different. There are the process of verification or KYC process that needs to comply with Thai laws.
Thai smartcontract changes the way traditional document signing work completely. One of the problem of the traditional method is that there is no proof that the information stated in the signed document really comes from that person. To solve that problem, a user need to send his/her public key to one of the trusted certificate authority (CA). The CA then identifies the real user identity. If the given information is valid, the user gets the certificate stating he is whom. Finally, the user uses his certificate to sign the document.
Furthermore, it is not every CA can be used to sign the PDF sign. The CAs need to be trusted by Adobe and you do not really have a choice to buy a certificate. The price starts from $369/person/year. Therefore, the first issue of the traditional method is that your choice is limited to PDF document and it is costly when compared to the cost of living in Thailand.
Another problem of the traditional method is that the file gets changed every times you sign. This means if you and your parties manage to get a trusted certificate from a trusted CA, you also need to manage to get the last copy of the document. For example, There are A, B, and C. A and B are signing parties while C is the witness. Once A creates an origin document, A firstly needs to maintain at least 2 copies of the documents; one is unsigned editable; DOCX and PDF, the other is signed-by-A copy. Then, A send the signed copy to B. B then uses his certificate to sign the signed-by-A copy. At this step, if A cannot manage to get the copy from B, A has no proof that B have signed the document. This becomes more complex when you have more parties and more documents as you need the get the latest copy to proof the contract. There is no way to fix this issue as it is the way it does. Finally, if the computer gets compromised or the file is lost somehow, the proof is gone.
Thai smartcontract simplifies all the issues states by having the blockchain to prove the existance of the document and the intention of the signer. The document remains original on the cloud as we use the document hasing value and the users' intention to store on the blockchain instead. There is the way to make this legally without requiring a secure trusted certificate authority. The information will store forever as long as the blockchain stays alive. That is why we choose Digibyte blockchain as it seems to be the most promising opensource blockchain in existance. There are continuous developments on the blockchain and its ecosystem instead of focusing on the trading exchange in some blockchains. The transaction fee is feasible and the transaction speed is fast enough to support million of documents signing simultaneouely. Once the signing information is stored in the blockchain, it is impossible to modify that information. Thai smartcontract only store the reference number at which the user could find in the blockchain. Therefore, even the system is dead, the blockchain is still alive.
Currently, we have no plan to make the service chargeable as the project is sponsored by Rajamanagala University of Technology Suvarnabhumi. We try to make the service accessible to every Thais. Therefore, the free plan will remain forever to support personal buy&sell use online.
Anyway, we are looking forward to have the partner in Thailand and in another country as well. If you find this system is intersested, we can be a partner to implement the system lawfully in your country.
Dr. Utharn Buranasaksee
Project Manager