The financial services sector continues to demonstrate its position as a leading adopter of e-commerce technology with the launch of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's (ASIC) new Electronic Company Registration (ECR) service.

The service will allow companies to streamline the process of company registration through the use of the online service. Through use of the online service, ASIC says that clients can access and pay for company registration services at any time, not just office hours.

ASIC Commissioner, Jillian Segal said that the new system would significantly cut down on the cost of registering companies and make the entire process easier.

"These cost savings will be passed on to business by the intermediaries, who are primarily specialist in company registrations, both to ASIC and its intermediary clients."

Segal went on to note that the new system would provide substantial time savings for companies, as the can now register a company name without having to attend an ASIC office.

"As well as reducing the cost of company registrations, both in time and money, ECR makes it easier to register new companies. Instead of having to physically attend busy ASIC business centres to register a company over the counter, the entire process can now be conducted via the Internet.

The system uses a combination of smart cards, digital certificates and public key encryption to ensure the security of the service. The ECR system also allows ASIC's clients to electronically pay for their new company name over the net.

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