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One of the Deputy Registrars at CAIPO, Kevin Hunte, speaking to stakeholders about the changes coming to the website.(G. Brewster/BGIS) |
Persons seeking to register business names, and make inquiries and reports about companies through the Corporate Affairs and Intellectual Property Office (CAIPO) may now do so online.
This has become possible since the corporate entity is moving towards the establishment of an electronic platform as it seeks to improve the quality of service while offering its clients a faster turnaround time.
Yesterday, Thursday, February 7, officials from CAIPO, and an information technology consultant, held a meeting at Invest Barbados with stakeholders, service providers and registered agents who conduct business with the registry, to update them about efforts being made to improve of service quality.
Registrar at CAIPO, Heather Clarke, said the department was seeking to achieve this through the use of information technology (IT) systems, and, therefore, the training of staff, agents and frequent users was an important part of the process.
Presently, stakeholders may go online to reserve business names, determine if there are similar ones, monitor the status of applications, conduct inquiries and make reports.
However, other services such as financial processing, electronic document certificates, electronic document filing, document authentication and file downloads will be among other electronic services which will be offered by CAIPO in the near future.
The Registrar explained that to facilitate such changes the existing legislation first had to be amended and data verified. "We found that some of it was not accurate. So, over the last two-and-a-half years, we worked to make it more accurate. We have now completed that process in the registry," she said.
She added that additional personnel were currently working on entering the outstanding data into the system and this should be completed by the end of the financial year.
In addition, CAIPO is seeking to upgrade its website to make it more user-friendly and interactive.
One of the Deputy Registrars at CAIPO, Kevin Hunte, explained that the website currently receives a daily average of 800 hits, but challenges were being experienced with the ease of accessibility of forms. However he gave the assurance that this would soon be addressed.
He added that the new website would contain a news banner which would provide stakeholders with frequent updates about matters pertaining to CAIPO and the conduct of business. The updated website will also facilitate easier browsing of the two distinct arms of CAIPO, namely – corporate and intellectual property.