From paper to portal: The SEC’s digital leap

The government continues to align its regulatory frameworks by steadily adopting technology to streamline public services and ease doing business.

- JERIMAE CELINE GALOPE

As such, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued Memorandum Circular (MC) No. 3, Series of 2025, requiring the use of the Zuper Easy Registration Online (ZERO) system for registering corporations. This initiative aims to modernize corporate registration, reduce red tape, and foster a more efficient, transparent, and accessible business environment.

In 2021, the SEC launched the Electronic Simplified Processing of Application for Registration of Company (eSPARC). This system replaced the older Company Registration System (CRS) and was designed to simplify and digitize the registration of domestic stock and non-stock corporations with up to 15 incorporators. eSPARC also facilitated registration applications for partnerships and for foreign-corporation licenses to do business.

eSPARC features two main subsystems: Regular Processing and OneSEC (One-day Submission and E-registration of Companies). Under Regular Processing, applicants begin by reserving a proposed company name and entering the proposed company’s details online for the SEC’s review, which typically takes up to seven working days. Once pre-approved, they then upload the notarized and authenticated or apostilled documents to the portal, pay the registration fees via eSPAYSEC, and receive a digital Certificate of Incorporation (Col). However, applicants must still submit hard copies of signed and notarized documents and proof of payment before they can secure the physical Col. With the numerous back-and-forth interactions on the portal, as well as the additional time and cost required for notarization and authentication, this process can be tedious and prone to red tape, which may result in delayed registration.