The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), responsible for the registration and maintenance of companies as well as the protection of Intellectual Property will implement enhanced E-services and Bizportal platforms as part of the CIPC innovation journey.
The CIPC modernisation journey entails migration of the CIPC processes into new modern platforms, as well as automation of all processes to provide a foundation for full and ease of automation of the CIPC internal and external processes. This journey has over the years resulted in milestones such as the automation of new company registrations, co-operatives registrations and annual returns filings, to name a few. The automation of the processes has led to the CIPCs registration systems being paperless, faster, and more cost effective.
Indeed, the CIPC’s continuous improvements of its system and processes are in response to the challenge of improving the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ and to address red tape in the economic sphere of South Africa. Thus, the real-time company registration, offered via the improved CIPC’s platforms has been hailed as a significant milestone in the company registration regime of the country.
According to the CIPC Commissioner, Adv. Rory Voller ‘‘our continuous efforts to reduce red tape, while adhering to the legislative mandate, are geared to attract investment into South Africa and thereby creating much needed employment opportunities and stimulating economic growth of the country”.
The new e-services and BizPortal platforms’ key enhancements include the automation and simplification of foreign director assurance, integrated services which are all aimed at the signification reduction of red tape. Multiple company registration and maintenance functions will be combined ensuring improved efficiencies whilst adhering to legislative requirements. Users of CIPC e-services can look forward to an updated automated director change process as well as the ability to file annual returns whilst concluding additional transactions in a single step. The revamped Bizportal and e-services platform will also allow security authenticated bank cards as payment method to conclude transactions.
Furthermore, the Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and the historic payment method, which allows for declining balance, will be phased out. The latter payment method enable customers to make bulk deposits into their respective customer code and CIPC would deduct relevant charges in line with transactions conducted. On the new enhanced platforms, customers will be required to use debit/credit cards as a payment method. The CIPC has issued a notice to that effect and outlined a process for requesting refunds in respect of accounts with credit balances. It is envisaged that the change in payment method and the enhancements referred to above will improve turn-around times and provide an improved customer experience.
In the words of the CIPC’s Chief Information Officer, Mr. Phineas Mogale, “We have conducted extensive testing and continue to rigorously test the new systems in order to ensure seamless transitions as far as possible. Although we do not anticipate any issues, it is however realistic to expect teething problems that we will attend to with speedy resolution”.
The new platforms can be accessed through the following links:
