Digital Archiving Systems (DAS) and Raven Imaging have partnered to back-scan the 150 million-page archives of the share transfer documents of Compushare's local operations.
The three-year contract is worth R8 million, says Raven Imaging director Jonathan Scott.
Raven Imaging provides the hardware, software and storage devices, while DAS runs a scanning and data-capture bureau, and provides hosting services for the digitised data.
The initial scope of the project is to back-scan SA documents only, says DAS MD Ronald Melmed. "The intention is for DAS to ultimately extend its reach globally," he says.
Compushare's share registry business is the only global share registry service provider to the securities industry. It has a presence in 17 countries, and serves 14 000 client corporations and their 100 million shareholders.
The process
According to Scott, the scanning of the share transfer documents is being done at Compushare's offices, in downtown Johannesburg. It began in December 2007 and often continues around the clock, he says.
The process involves the preparation of the documents, the actual scanning, using optical character recognition technology, and monitoring the process, he says. Scanners also have to do manual editing of the scanned documents if it is needed, he adds.
"The most challenging aspect of the entire process is related to the fact that many of the share transfer documents are very old, fragile and come in different sizes with varying paper quality," Scott says.
However, software supplied by DAS is able to deal with challenging hard copies that would otherwise require a high level of human intervention, he says.
Following conversion to digital format, the original hardcopy documents may either be destroyed or where required, retained in line with statutory requirements.
Easy access
Compushare marketing director Ursula du Plooy notes that it is exceptionally expensive and wasteful to physically search for hard copy documents when retrieval is required.
This is why many organisations are increasingly opting to back-scan their key historical documents, she says.
"Given the number of accounts we maintain, it is imperative for us to ensure our historical data is highly secure and easily accessible to our clients and their shareholders," she adds.
Related story:
Healthbridge switches to digital
Share