Document trust setup

Every Savings.Club Beneficiary Certificate is digitally signed with our issuing authority's certificate. To make your PDF reader recognise that signature as valid by default — without manually checking every time — install our trust certificate once. Five minutes, then you never have to think about it again.

Step 1 — Download

Savings Club Trust Certificate

X.509 / RSA-2048 / SHA-256 · 10-year validity · SHA-256 fingerprint e276dd05a58b95c8 24e2fdfd098c5a31 cd9fc887a26c8a54 e8f25bfcad1f0ce9

Download .pem (1.5 KB)

Why install this?

By default, PDF readers only trust signatures from a small set of commercial certificate authorities (the "Adobe Approved Trust List"). Self-signed issuers like ours are cryptographically just as strong, but readers can't verify them without being told to trust us first. After installing the certificate above, you'll see "Signed and all signatures are valid" on every Savings.Club Beneficiary Certificate — and you'll see an immediate warning if anyone has tampered with one.

Step 2 — Install the certificate

Pick the reader you use. Each is a one-time setup.

Adobe Acrobat Reader (Windows or macOS)

Open Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Menu: Edit → Preferences (Windows) or Acrobat Reader → Preferences (macOS).
In the left list, choose Signatures, then under Identities & Trusted Certificates click More….
In the panel that opens, select Trusted Certificates on the left, then click Import.
Click Browse and select the savings-club-trust-certificate.pem file you just downloaded. Click Open.
The certificate appears in the import preview. Make sure the Savings Club Beneficiary Certificate Issuer row is selected and click Import.
Back in the trusted-certificates list, find the new Savings Club Beneficiary Certificate Issuer row, select it, and click Edit Trust.
Tick Use this certificate as a trusted root and (optionally) Certified documents. Click OK, then close the preferences.
Open any Savings.Club Beneficiary Certificate. The signature panel at the top should now show "Signed and all signatures are valid" with a green check.

macOS Preview (and any other macOS app via Keychain)

Double-click the downloaded savings-club-trust-certificate.pem. Keychain Access will open and the certificate will be added to your login keychain.
Find Savings Club Beneficiary Certificate Issuer in the list, double-click to open it.
Expand the Trust section at the top.
Set When using this certificate to Always Trust.
Close the window. macOS will ask for your login password to confirm the change.

Preview's signature support is limited compared to Adobe Reader's; for the full validation panel install Adobe Acrobat Reader instead.

Windows (system-wide, all apps)

Right-click the downloaded savings-club-trust-certificate.pem and choose Install Certificate.
Choose Current User and click Next.
Select Place all certificates in the following store → Browse… → Trusted Root Certification Authorities. Click OK, then Next.
Confirm the import. Windows will warn you that you're adding a new trusted root — that's expected. Click Yes.
Open any Savings.Club Beneficiary Certificate in Adobe Reader, Microsoft Edge, or any PDF viewer that uses Windows trust. The signature should validate automatically.

Linux / Firefox / other readers

Most Linux PDF viewers (Okular, Foxit Reader for Linux) read trust from /etc/ssl/certs. Copy the .pem there and run update-ca-certificates (Debian/Ubuntu) or update-ca-trust (RHEL/Fedora). Firefox has its own trust store: open Settings → Privacy & Security → View Certificates → Authorities → Import and select the .pem.

Step 3 — Verify it worked

Open any Beneficiary Certificate PDF in the reader you just configured. The top should show a blue ribbon or banner reading "Signed and all signatures are valid". Click it to inspect — the signer is Savings Club Beneficiary Certificate Issuer, the organisation is Savings Club Financing Technologies LLC, and the reason is Issuance of Beneficiary Certificate <number>.

If anyone has modified the PDF after we issued it — even by a single byte — the same panel will switch to red and read "The document has been altered or corrupted since it was signed". That's the strongest single signal that a presented certificate is not genuine.

What if I don't want to install anything?

The signature is still cryptographically valid even without the trust install — your PDF reader just won't tell you about it automatically. You can always verify a certificate by:

Scanning the QR code on the front of the cert. The live page on verify.savings.club is the single source of truth.
Comparing the printed Token below the QR (first and last six characters of the verification token) against the last segment of the URL the QR resolves to.
Checking the certificate number appears identically in the top-right of the front, in the "reverse →" hint, and inside the microprint band on all four edges (use a magnifier or zoom the PDF to 600%).

Reporting a suspected fake

Email fraud@savings.club with the certificate number and a copy of the document. We'll respond within one business day.