Adobe has just announced the Cloud Signature Consortium, a group that's comprised of leading industry and academic organisations.

The initiative is committed to building a new open standard for cloud-based digital signatures across mobile and web - so anyone can digitally sign documents from literally anywhere.

Increasingly used by businesses and governments, digital signatures are the most advanced and secure type of electronic signature around the world.

However, the whole process can be complex and time consuming and in many cases they need certificate-based IDs stored on a physical device. This approach doesn't quite meet increasing consumer and business expectations for simple and engaging experiences that work anywhere, on any device.

According to Adobe, they're collaborating with industry leaders to develop an open standard that will bring the world's most secure form of electronic signing to over seven billion mobile devices around the globe.

Bryan Lamkin, executive vice president and general manager of Digital Media, Adobe, says that the company has a strong history of pioneering, embracing and advancing industry standard.

“With more than six billion digital and electronic signature transactions processed each year through Adobe Sign and Adobe Document Cloud, we are focused on moving the signature industry forward," says Lamkin.

Adobe state that the new standard created by the consortium will be critical to furthering digital transformation of business on a global scale, by giving everyone access to secure digital signature solutions across a full range of cloud applications and mobile devices.

The Cloud Signature Consortium aims to build a global network of industry contributors and intends to release new standard specifications by the end of 2016—with the first cloud-based implementations to follow soon after.