Bermuda's international and local businesses will be able to cut down on the cost and time spent on administration, and have legal proof their email was delivered thanks to a new service offered by the Bermuda Post Office.

The Registered Email service, which was officially launched at a reception held at the Bermuda Underwater Institute yesterday and will be provided by Bermuda-incorporated company RPost, ensures immediate delivery, authenticated receipt, and proof the email was sent, its time and content.

Now every enterprise from large insurance companies to law firms will be able to send important documents faster and more efficiently, while doing away with the need for printing, faxing, scanning or using a courier or overnight delivery service, unless dispatching a bulky package.

More specifically, the service will reduce costs by eliminating FedEx, certified, registered mail; ensuring court admissibility of email records; obtaining document content and notice delivery proof via email; receiving Registered Receipt email that proves PDF-letter delivery; maintaining the 'upper hand' in any dispute involving email; reducing help-desk inquiries related to email delivery; and reducing e-discovery burden searching server logs and testifying to associate content.

It comes in particularly handy in the event of the recipient denying receipt of an email of consequence to yourself or your client, or if they produce a printed copy of the email with different content to the one that was sent, which comes into its own right with the high risk and sensitive nature of much of the business done on the Island.

Zafar Khan, CEO of RPost said that from discussions with a number of the Bermuda's business community, he believed the new service would come in especially useful for the Island's global companies, including insurers, in terms of signing and sealing contracts and dealing invoices, as well as notifications of events such as AGMs and board meetings and general information via email with verifiable proof of message delivery, content and official time stamp.

"As businesses modernise their processes with software tools, they have traditionally left the high value correspondence in paper form due to standard email's inherent risk of manipulation and claims of non-receipt," he said.

"Now, RPost and the Bermuda Post Office together close the final paper holdouts, modernising the full mailstream to save money, time, and providing customers with the ability to better serve their customers, manage corporate activities, and reduce risk in supplier correspondence.

"I think this is a really ground-breaking initiative for government and shows they are aggressively working to listen to the modern needs of their corporate and individual user base to help ensure that Bermuda is one of the most technologically advanced and efficient places to do business as compared with other places around the world.

"The service is also a revenue generating opportunity for the postal service and gives them a new product line to add to their suite of services."

Having met with postmaster general George Outerbridge to discuss Registered Email and the possibility of bringing it to the Island, Mr. Khan, who revealed to The Royal Gazette at last year's Risk and Insurance Management Society conference that talks were in the offing with Government to provide the new service, signed a definitive agreement in spring 2009 for its provision, prior to it going live yesterday.

The service is easy-to-use and inexpensive, working in the same way as buying a book of postage stamps at the fraction of the cost of a typical courier service, with monthly and annual all-inclusive service plans available.

Other features include electronic and digital signatures using a mouse, providing all parties with electronically signed contracts that have evidential weight equal to 'wet-ink' signatures.

Minister of Energy, Telecommunications and E-Commerce, Michael Scott, said: "For our business customers who compete on a global scale, we are extending the mailstream to include Registered Email services that bring far greater agility and speed in conducting their business internationally, with the added benefit of irrefutable proof to protect against common misunderstandings related to email delivery, content or time.

"For our local customers, we look to expose them to the efficiencies afforded by Bermuda's electronic transaction laws, with simple-to-use, low cost, and market-leading electronic services."

RPost, whose largest global client is Aon, had 24 patents in 20 countries worldwide.

To use the new Registered Email service visit the Bermuda Government website at www.gov.bm and download a free trial.