Specimen signature

What it means

A specimen signature is a sample of the signature of a person authorised to act for the company, such as a director, board member or procurator. It serves for comparison: a bank, register or business partner uses it to check that a document really was signed by an authorised person.

Specimen signatures are most often encountered at the bank. When an account is opened and whenever the statutory body changes, the bank asks for the specimen signatures of the people who may dispose of the money and records whether they sign alone or jointly.

The commercial register historically required a specimen signature as an attachment to the application to register a director. Today the focus is mainly on the new person’s consent bearing an officially attested signature or a qualified electronic signature, so we check the current requirements with every filing.

How it works in practice

When a director changes, we prepare a list of every place that needs a new specimen signature or authorisation: banks, online banking, the commercial register, insurers, leasing companies and key suppliers. Without this the company may go weeks without anyone allowed to sign a payment.

For bank specimen signatures we recommend setting the signing rules to match the register entry and internal policies. If under the register directors act jointly, sole authority at the bank bypasses the control the shareholders wanted.

When a director is removed, their specimen signature at the bank must be cancelled immediately, not only after the register is updated. Registration can take several days, and until then the removed director could still operate the account.

What to watch out for

A specimen signature does not guarantee that the signature on a document is genuine. For important contracts we therefore do not rely on comparison with the specimen alone but ask for an attested signature or an electronic signature that can be verified technically.

A forgotten old specimen signature is a security risk. In regular reviews of authorisations we therefore go through the list of people with signing rights at banks with clients and compare it with reality, just as with signature records on accounting documents.