ISLAMABAD (Mar 31, 2010) – The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has decided that all listed companies will be directed to convert to e-service and the electronic registrations would be made mandatory for all new companies, Registrar of companies Jawed Hussain said here on Tuesday.
Talking to media at a workshop on e-services in the SECP he said that the finance ministry has given permission to the corporate regulator that all the registration process and annual filings should be converted to paperless environment.
The SECP management is expected to make a final decision next week for the implementation of mandatory e-filing schedule, and through a notification all listed companies would be asked to convert to e-service.
The decision of mandatory electronic registration would be enforced later for all new applicants.
Out of 600 registered listed companies around 95 per cent are already electronically registered, the official said and expected that the remaining 30-35 companies would be registered in a months time.
The listed companies have a better IT setup and their number is not very large, the SECP registrar said and added that it will be followed by complete ban on registration of new companies through conventional modes and only e-registration would be permitted.
Currently, more than 60 per cent of new registrations are applied through conventional paper work, while the e-registration is mainly confined to few sectors in major cities.
The mandatory e-registration of all new applications would continue for around six months after that all the existing registered companies would be forced to convert to e-service. The SECP has currently 54,000 registered companies but only 3,000 are registered at the e-service.
The official said that out of 51,000 registered companies around 15 per cent apply for conversion to e-service per month and the number would swell soon after the announcement of mandatory conversion to e-service.
Meanwhile, head of the IT department in SECP Ibtesam Motasim Khan told the workshop that the MIS department has also started working to further strengthen the systems to protect them against hacking or overloading.
He said that a disaster recovery cell is under construction at the MIS in SECP that would further facilitate the companies.
