The promissory note is a nominative title of credit issued in favor of a person whose name is expressed in the document.
Article 170 of the General Law of Credit Titles and Operations (LGTOC) establishes that to guarantee its validity and operability this document must contain the explicit mention of being a promissory note, the unconditional promise to pay a certain amount of money, the name of the beneficiary, that is, in favor of the person who is issued; the place of payment, the date and place of subscription and, very important, as a manifestation of the will, the signature of the subscriber, who is the one who undertakes to pay the amount stated in said document in the time and manner established therein and in favor of the beneficiary.
All of the above requirements must also be met in the electronic promissory note; but an electronic signature must be stamped that is valid and used for digital documents.
In this regard, it must be said that in Mexico various signature processes have been successfully digitized for different legal acts, administrative procedures and the integration of digital justice, among other services.
With the aforementioned electronic signature, the electronic promissory note will have the legal validity of the one granted on paper, but with the dynamism and agility of digital documents.
Although it is true that the law does not refer to a handwritten signature, much less an electronic one, it does not limit the use of either one or the other, which is why electronic promissory notes may contain the advanced electronic signature, also known as “FIEL”, issued by any public agency or institution that validates it; “FAITHFUL” being understood as the set of data that is attached to an electronic message with the purpose of identifying the sender as its legitimate author; as if it were a handwritten signature.
The FIEL provides security to electronic transactions, as it is made up of characters with which the author of the message can be identified and verified that it has not been modified.
On this topic, on March 26, reforms and additions to the LGTOC were published in the Official Gazette of the Federation regarding the specific regulation of electronic promissory notes, which were used without it, so it is noteworthy that now the aforementioned The law provides that credit titles are the documents necessary to exercise the literal right contained therein, regardless of whether they are issued by written or electronic means.
One of the additions made authorizes the issuance of promissory notes by electronic, optical means or by any technology or information system that will be used to generate, transmit, receive, deliver or process data messages, in terms of article 89 of the Commercial Code.
Thus it is established that they must be considered as a data message in the terms of the Second Title of the Second Book of the Commercial Code and the legal effects, validity, or enforceability of the rights consigned in said titles will not be ignored, for the sole reason that they are contained in a data message.
It is also indicated that when the LGTOC or another regulation provides that operations be recorded in writing, with regard to credit titles issued by electronic, optical or any other technology, that provision will be considered fulfilled if the document remains complete and available.
For the purposes of credit titles issued by electronic, optical or any other technology, integrity means that the information they contain has remained complete and unaltered, with the exception of any changes that may arise in the normal course of their communication. file or presentation that is recorded and its circulation is traceable in the information system referred to in article 5. of that Law.
The regulation of the electronic promissory note is one more step in the integration of information technologies in our daily lives, so it is convenient to adjust and update the way in which legal activity is carried out for all legal entities and legal operators, since it is It is undeniable that there is no turning back in the use of digital, technological or electronic media in the legal world.