SEC services to go online

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will soon be putting all its services online, including corporate registrations.

SEC associate commissioner Joselia Poblador told reporters that the commission has awarded the project to a local infotech company that would develop and implement it.

According to Poblador, the objective of the project is to enable private companies to conduct their businesses with the SEC on line for such standard procedures as registration, reporting and regular submission of various documents required by the law.

Poblador said this will benefit companies outside the main urban centers that will otherwise have to go to the SEC offices to conduct their business.

Poblador said a well-established online process will encourage higher compliance to the government’s reportorial and registration requirements since it will eliminate the problem of accessibility.

Although the country still lacks the degree of extensive computer penetration that most developed economies have already achieved, the SEC said the recent developments in telephony and information technology has reached the point where the project would be viable.

Poblador said the commission is now in the process of finalizing the outline of the procedure to determine which could be conducted online and which would have to be conducted in person.

"We’re drawing up the specifics and then the contractor will provide us with the software system that would do it for us," she said.

Aside from incorporation, the SEC is also the agency that processes changes in corporate name, changes in corporate objectives and functions, verification, updating corporate information and the like.

Various government agencies have been attempting to put their services on the internet but the only successful effort thus far had been that of the National Statistics Office (NSO) which has been able to make its information retrieval service available on line.

According to Poblador, the SEC is also in the process of drafting a simplified manual that will detail procedures and requirements to make compliance and applications easier and more comprehensible. – Des Ferriols