SEC reduces red tape for financial startups

THE SECURITIES and Exchange Commission (SEC) has streamlined the requirements for groups wanting to start a financing or lending company in line with President Duterte’s directive to all government agencies to create a more business-friendly environment.

In a press statement on Friday, SEC chair Teresita Herbosa announced that the agency’s Company Registration and Monitoring Department’s (CRMD) had reduced the documentary requirements for start-up financing/lending companies by consolidating documents and dispensing with some redundant ones.

In addition, the SEC’s Corporate Governance and Finance Department (CGFD—the unit in charge of monitoring registered financing and lending companies—also trimmed down the requirements in order to ease up monitoring as well as doing business.

Streamlining critical processes facilitate quicker issuance of certificates applied for, Herbosa said, as she assured the public that the SEC would continue to strive to improving services by “eliminating excessive or inflexible administrative procedures and protracted decision-making processes that slow down public service.”

The CRMD has reduced the basic documentary requirements for applications for certificates of authority to operate as a financing company to 15 from 23 documents. For financing companies applying to operate a branch office, the  documentary requirements have been pared down from 13 to eight.

For applications for certificates of authority to operate a lending company head office, the documentary requirements used to be 16 documents but have now been reduced to 12 documents. For lending companies applying to operate a branch office, the documentary requirements previously required eight documents but were now down to six documents.