First National Bank (FNB) South Africa has partnered with the South African government to launch a new initiative that will enable individuals open businesses with ease through an integrated system.
“First National Bank (FNB) partnered with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), a public entity reporting to the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti), in an endeavour to streamline the company registration and corporate bank opening processes,” the company announced.
This is in a drive to help small and medium enterprises in Africa by making it easier to settle legal documents and make relevant payments.
“A key theme for the dti and its agencies is continuous improvement and reduction of red tape for the end-user. This is exactly what this project is demonstrating: it is a public private partnership in the true sense of the term, where government and the bank partnered to offer its different products to their mutual customer through an integrated process,” the Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies said.
“This FNB partnership is one of a number of initiatives that we are implementing to reduce red tape for small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) and promote efficiencies for end-users,” he added.
The system will use FNB’s online platform to open and pay for registration services. This will make it almost instant for potential business owners to get their companies legitimized.
“The process is instantaneous and will reduce red tape, improve service delivery, become more accessible to the broader public and will improve the integrity of the register as well as reduce the turnaround time which is dependent on the speed at which the entrepreneur provides the bank with its “Know your customer” documentation and payment for the service,” says Astrid Ludin, Commissioner of CIPC.