Article provided by CIPC
The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission has over 2 million registered companies in its database, the organisation has registered a record number of 510,000 companies in the reporting period compared to 385,000 in 2019/20. One of our main objectives is to make our services accessible anywhere and at any time nationwide. It is because of these reasons that the CIPC sought collaboration partnership with South African banks since they have nationwide footprint that will enable us to reach our common customer in a better and efficient way. The collaboration with the South African banks has always been based on what we have termed “three-way value proposition”; value to the banks as customers can open a business bank account while these banks are able to access the customer’s company registration data through the API integration process.
The ultimate value though is that our common customer can complete these two transections using one platform known as BizPortal. As the organisation moved from a hybrid company registration regime to a completely paperless environment using the Department of Home Affairs data verification, the integrated platform has allowed one stop shop for many other institutions including the big four banks and recently, SASFIN and Capitec bank; giving our customer more choices in the business banking environment.
The process is quiet simple! The customer can log into BizPortal; complete company registration, and if needs be, the customer can choose to open a business bank account, customer is then given a wide range of options from South African banks with a summary of each banks’ service offering and banking fees. This one stop shop does not have extra cost over and above the known service fee related to company registration.
With pandemic (COVID 19) still amongst us, contactless business transactions have become a way of life and the CIPC is proud to have been at a forefront; having established online transacting with South African banks since 2011! The CIPC is constantly looking for innovative ways to make it easier for customers to access its services; furthermore the organisation is in a process of adding more value-add services to the banking collaboration and will share the exciting new services in the
near future.