December 28: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan’s (SECP) two-day Registrars Conference began here on Saturday.
This year the conference theme is “Winning the Business Trust”, where SECP’s Registrars from across the country shall deliberate upon improving compliance with companies law, advancing E-Services initiatives, setting new benchmarks for ease of doing business and digital transformation of Company Registration Officers (CROs). The topics of discussion also include enforcement of AML/CFT regulations, E-Services integration with provincial departments, evolving new global practices, digitalization of CRO’s regulatory procedures under SECP’s flagship project “Leading Efficiency through Automated Prowess – LEAP” within two years.
In his inaugural speech, the SECP Chairman, Aamir Khan said that Registrars are the face of SECP and their work, approach and behavior should be reflective of a model public sector organization. He underlined that Pakistan is fast moving into an era of transformation for laying the foundations of a transparent, digital and equitable economic landscape. Mr. Khan emphasized that line with the government’s agenda, the SECP has a vital role to facilitate businesses, investments and encourage new start-ups. This can be achieved through further amending our procedures to provide facilitation, reducing cost of doing business, and through provision of maximum guidance and information to our customers. Aamir underscore the importance of Secure Transaction Registry (STR) and introduce of Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) under LEAP as game changer for access to finance and much needed data analytics.
The SECP Commissioner for Corporatization and Compliance Department, Shaukat Hussain said that besides modernizing its corporate registry, SECP has recently undertaken series of reforms for providing ease of business registration. These reforms and technological development have led to 39% increase in company’s incorporation in 2018-2019, while over 90% companies incorporated online, he added.
Shaukat mentioned that with SECP’s simplified and hassle free procedures, now a new company can be registered within four hours through eService. Moreover, he said, the company incorporation and other regulatory fee has been reduced significantly and digital online payment facilities are also in placed.
“Our next target is to integrate SECP’s eService with all provincial governments that will provide single step registration with all departments”, said Shaukat and announced that the SECP would establish dedicated customer facilitation centers to facilitate startups.
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