Digital initiatives fuel SEC firms registration

February 5, 2025 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — Digital initiatives made doing business in the country more efficient and propelled the number of new companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to an all-time high last year.

The SEC registered 52,304 new companies in 2024, a six-percent increase from 49,506 in 2023.

As a result, the total number of active SEC-registered companies reached 527,710 at yearend.

According to the SEC, stock corporations accounted for 75 percent or 39,146 of the newly registered companies in 2024, while non-stock corporations comprised 21 percent or 10,782. The remaining five percent or 2,376 were partnerships.

Newly registered one-person corporations, meanwhile, posted a 27-percent jump to 8,640 in 2024 from 6,794 in 2023.

In terms of location, the SEC said that nearly 40 percent or 20,231 of the new registered companies were based in Metro Manila, followed by Region IV-A (Calabarzon) at 8,226 and Region III (Central Luzon) at 6,141.

The commission attributed the record high number of company registration last year to innovative and advanced digital platforms that have been introduced to make doing business easier in the Philippines.

“Digital transformation has always been one of the top priorities of the SEC to improve the efficiency of our services. Surpassing the 50,000-mark in company registrations serves as a testament that we are on the right track in encouraging entities to legitimize their operations through registration with the commission,” SEC chairperson Emilio Aquino said.

Since commencing its digital transformation journey in 2020, the SEC said it has consistently set records in the past three years in terms of company registration.

The commission launched in 2021 the SEC Electronic Simplified Processing of Application for Registration of Corporation or eSPARC, reducing the registration process from 34 days to three days.

The One Day Submission and Electronic Registration of Companies or OneSEC, a subsystem of eSPARC, has enabled applicants to register their company in just one minute and 14 seconds, from the start of the application to the receipt of a digital certificate of incorporation.

In July last year, the SEC also launched the third wave of its digital initiatives aimed at making company registration more efficient.

The initiatives included the SEC Zuper Easy Registration Online as well as the Electronic Submission Authentication Portal, which removed the need for wet signatures and submission of hard copies of registration requirements.

“In 2025, we will capitalize on the success of our digital transformation journey and explore other strategies that will bring our services closer to the public to contribute to the further improvement of ease of doing business in the Philippines,” Aquino said.