The Securities and Exchange Commission said Friday it plans to accredit service providers and service agents to help the public in processing applications for company or partnership registration and other transactions with the agency.
It said the practice of getting company service providers and company service agents to assist the public with their transactions with the agency was also being observed in other jurisdictions such as Singapore.
The corporate regulator said the initiative aimed to limit and regulate a smaller filing group who would be responsible for the overall compliance of business entities in a timely manner to avoid late fees and penalties.
It said the accreditation would also help the transacting public in need of assistance from legal and financial experts on the application for registration for partnerships or domestic corporations as well as highly technical applications.
“Applications submitted and processed through CSPs or CSAs could see faster turnaround times, as accredited service providers will be given a separate lane to access the SEC Electronic Simplified Processing of Application for Registration of Company or eSPARC,” the SEC said.
“Moreover, they will be deemed complete and correct, and will no longer be subjected to pre-processing by the SEC Company Registration and Monitoring Department or CRMD,” it said.
Based on the proposed accreditation rules released by SEC, prospective service providers should pass an online accreditation examination designed to determine their competency in the registration proceedings for corporations and partnerships.
Those who pass will be issued certification of accreditation that is valid for three years, renewable every three years thereafter.
Under the proposed rules, the SEC will not provide the standard rates that these service providers will charge to their clients. Instead, it will require service providers to provide a fixed table of payment or compensation which would be ready, available and applicable to all clients.
The SEC said it would randomly review the applications submitted by the CSA or CSP to ensure compliance, correctness and completeness of the registration.
It would impose penalties against CSAs and CSPs for errors and violations found during the post-audit review of the submitted registration documents.