Securities and Exchange Commission cites gains in 2023

MANILA, Philippines — The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has vowed to continue helping spur economic growth as it heads toward 2024.

SEC chairperson Emilio Aquino said the corporate regulator closed 2023 with improvements in the ease of doing business in the Philippines through digitization efforts.

“We also ramped up our financial literacy campaign to empower and protect investors, and explored new ways to boost the capital market,” he said.

Moving forward, he said the SEC is optimistic as it reaches its 88th year this 2024.

For 2023, the SEC received several awards, citations, recognitions and accreditations for the programs and reforms it implemented throughout the year.

For instance, in October, the Philippines was recognized for having one of the best company registration systems in the world – the Electronic Simplified Processing of Application for Registration of Company (eSPARC) –  during the annual conference of the Corporate Registers Forum in Malta.

The SEC said that eSPARC, launched in 2021, cut the time needed to register a company from 34 to three days.

Its subsystem, the One Day Submission and Electronic Registration of Companies, allows applicants to register a company in as fast as one minute and 14 seconds, from the start of the application to the receipt of a digital certificate of incorporation, the SEC said.

The SEC likewise helped promote sustainability in the corporate sector.

For the third consecutive year, the SEC received the Global Good Governance (3G) Advocacy and Commitment to Corporate Governance Award from London-based Cambridge International Finance Advisory (Cambridge IFA).

The SEC also helped boost sustainable finance, as evidenced by the $10.01 billion in ASEAN Green, Social and Sustainability (GSS) Bonds issued by Philippine companies from January to September 2023, as approved by the regulator.

The amount accounted for 24 percent of the total $41.07 billion worth of GSS bonds issued in the entire region during the same period.

“In addition, the SEC renewed its membership in the ASEAN Taxonomy Board, under the auspices of the ASEAN Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ Meeting and jointly driven by the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum, the ASEAN Insurance Regulators’ Meeting, the ASEAN Senior Level Committee on Financial Integration and ASEAN Working Committee on Capital Market Development, in recognition of the Commission’s leadership in the promotion of sustainable finance,” the SEC said.

The SEC likewise upheld the integrity of the financial system and the business sector through adherence to international standards and practices.

This year saw the re-certification of its ISO 9001:2015 compliance, for the Commission’s sustained adherence to the international standard for its quality management system covering all core services across its main and extension offices in Baguio, Tarlac, Legazpi, Cebu, Iloilo, Bacolod, Davao, Cagayan de Oro, and Zamboanga, with zero nonconformity.

The Commission on Audit (COA), meanwhile, gave the SEC an unmodified opinion for its financial statements in 2022, marking the fifth consecutive year of receiving a good housekeeping mark from the state auditor.