Paperless company registration pays

Paperless registration and return submission to the Registrar of Joint Stock Company (RJSC) yielded 75 per cent increase in the listing of new companies since 2008.
By official count, the number of companies registered almost doubled to 214,618 as of June 2016 from 122,251 in 2008.
Contribution of the RJSC, the recordkeeping government body to the public exchequer, increased to Tk 49.5 million in the fiscal year 2015-16 from Tk 9.7 million in FY 2009-10.
The RJSC collected the amount on account of registration fee and stamp duty from the up-and-coming start-ups.
The company registration witnessed 7.15 per cent growth on average per year until June 2016 after digitisation of the two vital services in opening up businesses.
"Company, society, trade organisation and partnership-firm registration now takes four hours while name clearance of a company is disposed instantly," said one RJSC official.
Until 2008, the process of registration used to require 30 days while name clearance seven days.
Talking to the FE, some of the company lawyers expressed their satisfaction over the fast disposal process of name clearance but alleged some officials of the RJSC create unusual complexities on registration process despite digitisation of the system.  
However, RJSC sources blamed a section of company lawyers for charging higher amounts from their clients "in the name of bribing" RJSC officials.
They said inadequate manpower and the digitised system taking some time in service delivery may cause a little interruption but there is full-scale effort to provide better services.
Information on companies' returns can be scrutinised online and available which was difficult to find out earlier.
However, a printed copy of the return needs to be submitted to the RJSC with the audited financial statements of Chartered Accountant firms.  
The companies are now enjoying the online facility to deposit fees and in stamp collection.
Talking to the FE, some of the RJSC officials said the entity is shorthanded to conduct its activity smoothly.
It has 50 officials out of 81 approved posts for the office. A proposal for recruiting to additional 103 new posts for RJSC is now under consideration of the ministry of public administration.
Officials said the automation of the RJSC needs some supervision by the officials as other relevant systems of the other government wings have yet to be automated.
The reform initiatives of RJSC include introduction of digital signature in share transfer and return submission of registered companies.
Currently, it is mandatory to be present at RJSC at the time of transfer of shares of a company. The system will be simplified after establishing interconnectivity with the NID network.
The RJSC moves to interconnect with the National Identity (NID) card for online verification of company information. Establishment of disaster recovery centre, connecting with the National Single Window and trade portal are also under the digitisation plan of RJSC.
"The RJSC is going to introduce corporate user ID for companies to check forgery of companies' shares through transfer," said a senior official of the directorate.
Currently, company lawyers obtain the User ID number from RJSC and keep connected with it. If any company changes its lawyer or company secretary, the company becomes disconnected from the RJSC and cannot access his company information.
"We have planned to issue a corporate ID on the name of the company. The company can issue five sub-IDs on the corporate ID to its representatives," he added.
World Bank's concessional lending arm International Finance Corporation (IFC) supported the digitisation of RJSC under its 'computerisation of the office of the RJSC' project at a cost of around Tk 50 million in 2008.
Some companies claimed that the digitisation process could be much advanced as systems need upgrading with state-of-the-art technology.
Some 40,000 companies submit their annual returns to the RJSC out of some 200,000.
The directorate can charge a nominal amount of maximum Tk 4,000 from a company for failure in submission of returns.
The RJSC runs its activity as per the Companies Act 1994, the Society Registration Act 1860, the Partnership Act 1932 and the Trade Organisations Ordinance 1961.
It provides registration to companies, societies, trade organisations and partnership firms and records their annual returns, provides certified copies as per requirement of clients.
However, the government entity does not have any executive power. It can seek cooperation of the court in taking any punitive action against a company in case of any irregularities. However, there is a dedicated bench to deal with the company cases.
Officials said digitization process of the RJSC helps in escalation of doing-business indicators of Bangladesh in the WB report.

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