Yves Rocher, a French botanical beauty care firm with branches in 88 countries, will become the first company to use the service by sending payment instructions to Societe Generale and CM-CIC Group (Credit Mutuel and Credit Industriel et Commercial), complete with two electronic signatures, via SwiftNet.

The service was successfully tested on the Swift network ahead of the Sibos event in Copenhagen and will be used by Yves Rocher from November.

The electronic signature system was originated by a French inter-bank steering group formed to develop a means of transmitting payment files with personal digital signatures over SwiftNet. Once the banks' proposal was approved by Swift, Trax was the first technology vendor to integrate it into its product suite.

Traditionally, payment instructions require manual or electronic personal signatures from duly empowered individuals. With the new service, corporates such as Yves Rocher can apply two electronic signatures to payment files, which are then delivered to their banks via SwiftNet using FileAct.

Laurent Delauriere, director of treasury, Yves Rocher, says: "We saw the benefits of FileAct immediately, but needed to maintain the traditional practice of double signatures. Across the organisation we are working toward use of a single protocol and fully automated account statements and payment flows and expect to be live on SwiftNet with four banks by the end of the year."

Claude Brun, Senior Executive, CM-CIC Group, says: "This collaboration between French banks, Swift and Trax to offer an electronic signature solution via FileAct is a real value-added service, not only for large corporates but also mid-sized enterprises as it is available via direct and service bureau connections to SwiftNet."