South Africa simplifies procedure for registering businesses

The South African government on Tuesday launched a partnership with Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) in a bid to simply the procedure for registering businesses.

With this partnership, registering a company in South Africa is now a simpler and seamless process, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said at the launch ceremony in Johannesburg.

The CIPC is an entity of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Nedbank, which sees the bank joining other major banks in offering CIPC Online via nedbank.co.za.

This fully automated service allows business owners to register a business and open a business bank account in one convenient, seamless process.

The service is available to both Nedbank and non-Nedbank clients starting a new company, wishing to formalise existing businesses or creating additional ones.

"This is exactly what this project is demonstrating: it is a public-private partnership in the true sense of the term where government and Nedbank partnered to offer different products to the mutual customers through an integrated process," Davies said.

The Nedbank partnership is one of a number of the initiatives aimed at promoting efficiencies for end users, according to Davies.

This partnership extends the reach of government services to the most remote areas of South Africa, bridging the digital divide and making it easy to do business in South Africa, he added.

"Nedbank understands the tough economic environment that small businesses operate in. As such, we continue to innovate and provide practical solutions for small businesses, particularly start-ups, aimed at alleviating red tape and other barriers in starting a business," said Ciko Thomas, Nedbank's Group Managing Executive for Retail and Business Banking.

Typically, one of the first steps towards creating a small business is securing a company name, registering the company with the CIPC and obtaining a shareholder certificate. At this stage, a new business owner would also need to open a bank account to make and accept business related payments and start building a credit record.

Thomas stated that this solution will in turn assist businesses increase efficiencies, unlock growth opportunities, while freeing up their time to focus on what really matters in running their businesses.

"It is against this backdrop that we have partnered with the DTI and CIPC to bring a much needed service for new and existing businesses," he said.