Four companies have applied to become providers of e-signature universal certificates for the state administration, the State Administration Ministry said on its website on August 15 2008. August 14 was the deadline for submitting bids.

Spektar, Bankservice, InfoNotary and Information Services companies have filed documents for the public tender organised by the ministry. The price offered by the competitors will be the main factor in selecting the winner, the ministry said. The other factor will be the technical side of the bids.

The winner will supply the e-signature universal certificates, the authentication devices, the smart cards and the card reader devices. The winner company will have to supply a total of 500 e-signatures certificates with the accompanying smart cards and readers. They would have to be delivered within 10 days from the signing of the framework agreements.

The framework agreement, which the ministry will sign with the winning company, will last for 18 months, State Administration Minister Nikolai Vassilev said earlier in July. Municipalities and regional governor's administrations will be the recipients of the e-signature certificates, Vassilev added.

This is not the first tender organised by the Ministry for e-signature certificates. In 2006, InfoNotary supplied a total of 2150 e-signature certificates to the ministry at the price of 141 810 leva.

Currently, InfoNotary offers e-signature certificates at the price of 24 leva for individuals and 60 leva for legal entities, VAT included.

Spektar, on the other hand, offers the same product for 35.3 leva and 54.6 leva, VAT included, respectively.

Until recently, the four companies who have applied for the Ministry's tender were the only ones providing e-signature certificates in Bulgaria. On July 28 2008, the Communications Regulation Commission registered the System for Electronic Payments (SEP) Bulgaria company as a supplier of certificate services.

SEP Bulgaria has a system for electronic payments via mobile phones. It is owned by local companies Advance Equity Holding, Interact, Ino Ventures and Sirma Group.