Good luck to California notaries on the outcome, whatever it is
I just skimmed thru the bill. I don't want that much legislated into Texas law.
Doesn't this make California online notaries dependent on a platform? If so won't that reduce the number of notaries able to work independently? My concern is that these restrictions while they sound protective also sound expensive.
The more work I do in this arena and the more platforms I test, the more I realize that "platforms" are just bundled services. One day all of these bundled services may be affordable to a notary working alone.
You need a place to sign your name and a way to make a stamp and you're going to see a lot of new platforms doing that through the white-labeling of AdobeSign which you could conceivably do yourself.
You need a way to see the person over audio video conferencing technology. Pick one. Microsoft teams, Zoom, WebEx open source software is currently the most popular for incorporation into what we call platforms.
Both of those are easy to come up with for an affordable price.
And then you've got to have a service that provides KBA questions and credential analysis. Now that's where the expense is and why single notaries are using the bundled services of platforms. But here's the thing, last year at this time, a provider of these types of services would not even talk to an online notary about licensing their services. There's at least one platform that offers this to notaries at a reasonable price already. We will see more.
So it looks to me like California notaries are going to be at the mercy of platforms that will be under a lot of strict rules that will cost money to implement. Now, I could be wrong but restrictions come with costs.
If a notary can't figure out what he or she needs to be using, a platforms are great way to go. But I don't want to be tied to them because in the future I see that it will be possible for notaries to purchase their own services.
I use the SIGNiX platform. But I don't want anybody saying I've got to use a technology company that's going to bundle my services and mark them up.
So I would fight this in Texas. Making platforms a requirement is sort of like legislating that every notary assignment has to be provided to the notary by a signing service ( No offense to signing services at all, just an example.) Now the signing service will have to charge more just to be able to afford the required hoop-jumping. And notaries can't get the assignment directly from the source.
So now there must be a have a middleman with a lot of responsibility and a burden of having to meet all these expectations and putting notaries into the position of having to pay for those expectations.
Trying to make platforms responsible is a great idea. But is it logical? Now you've got this party, a provider of bundled services stuck in your laws.
And aside from going on YouTube and clubhouse and telling everybody how you can get rich being online notary, another avenue for income is white-labeling platforms or selling them as an affiliate and pretending you've built your own. And some entrepreneurs are dabbling in the platform business by going offshore to hire engineers.
Like I said, I use SIGNiX for my independent online notary work. I do not store my videos on its assets. I am responsible for my own videos and their redundant storage. SIGNiX does maintain a written journal of my notarial acts. It will store my videos if I want it to , but I don't. Some platforms charge handsomely for storing those videos.
I pay a little more to my platform than other platforms available , but they assets that are located in the USA. At least today they are. And they are approved by a dozen underwriters.
Speaking of that, this grandma's got an appointment to conduct online. COVID is alive and well in Texas, and I'm staying busy helping sick folks close cash buyer and seller sides of transactions.
Good luck and welcome to the fray. Earlier this week I signed up a Florida buyer. I also met with a couple living in CA buying in Texas.
I'm sure this is full of errors since I am using my phone to type it in. Have a great day everyone.
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