SEC cites accomplishments

Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Francis Lim, who was appointed on June 3, 2025, has been hard at work in the 13 months that he has been in office, effecting several welcome changes and shaking up the status quo that has ruffled the feathers of some corporate personalities.

In a briefing for members of the Monday Circle at the start of this week, Lim talked about the changes he has put in place.

In terms of easing business through digital processing and public service delivery, the SEC has Institutionalized strict processing timelines and a deemed approved policy for SEC applications, with transactions classified as simple, complex or highly technical to improve predictability and accountability.

It has also expanded its OneSEC ZERO program — One day submission and E-registration of companies (OneSEC) and Zuper Easy Registration Online (ZERO), combining two SEC initiatives into a fully paperless, end-to-end online company registration system — from 33 to 100 industry classifications.

The SEC has facilitated 51,682 registrations, including 2,399 under expanded templates. Since November 2025, it has also facilitated 1,157 registrations with foreign equity, including 183 through the expanded process. From January to May 2026, domestic registrations rose by 22.8 percent year on year to 12,715, while foreign registrations increased by 30.7 percent to 519.

The government regulatory agency has also expanded the eAMEND Portal from four to 28 simple amendment applications covering key corporate governance and shareholder-related changes. From January to May 2026, the expansion helped domestic amendments reach 5,284, up by 16.2 percent from the same period in 2025, while foreign amendments rose by 3.8 percent to 934.

It has also improved public assistance through SEC iMessage, the unified 1-4-SEC hotline, and the reopened Public Assistance and Complaints Desk at the SEC headquarters.

In terms of cost relief and proportionate compliance, the agency has reduced selected IT-related fees by 50 percent, with a further 25 percent reduction extended this year, amounting to almost P211 million in discounts as of June 2026. It has also granted discounted filing fees for qualified MSMEs covering registration of corporations and registration of securities. Alongside last year’s discount for increases in capital stock, this saved the public almost P149 million as of June 2026.

The agency now allows notarized subscription contracts for cash-based subscription payments in lieu of Special Audit Reports, removing the paid-up capital threshold and reducing documentary requirements. It has also raised the mandatory audit threshold to P3 million from P600,000 in total assets or liabilities, allowing qualified corporations to submit financial statements with a sworn Statement of Management’s Responsibility instead of audited financial statements, subject to safeguards.

More significantly, it has clarified compliance requirements for One Person Corporations, including timelines for appointment of officers, submission of financial statements and disclosure obligations. It has also suspended the per-month-of-delay penalty until Dec. 31 this year, providing P3.72 million in relief from P32.57 million in assessed penalties, while retaining the base fine for late and non-filing and the obligation to submit AFS and GIS.

In terms of capital market development, the SEC, under Lim’s leadership has most importantly revised the REIT framework by expanding eligible assets to include infrastructure, ICT assets, energy assets, data centers, toll roads, airports, ports and warehouses, helping pave the way for PLDT’s proposed VITRO data center REIT IPO of up to P24.2 billion.

Another significant move has been the issuance of the Philippine Green Equity Guidelines, the first of their kind in ASEAN, enabling Maynilad and Alternergy to receive Philippine Green Equity labels.

The agency has also created sector-specific capital market fast lanes, including SEC FARMS for agribusiness, SEC HOPES for health care, SEC POWERS for energy and SEC RENT for real-estate-related offerings.

It is pursuing reforms to crowdfunding and alternative fundraising to provide enterprises with more accessible financing options beyond traditional bank lending.

The regulator has also allowed open-end unit-issuing investment companies to operate umbrella funds with multiple sub-funds, giving fund managers greater flexibility and investors more cost- efficient diversification options.

It has operationalized the SEC Strategic Sandbox, with 24 applications — including those from Pluang, GCash, Atin Tayo and BlockShoals — covering foreign equities, tokenized real- world assets, crypto-asset intermediaries, crypto derivatives and margin trading, initial coin offerings and electricity derivatives.

According to Lim, the agency is studying a broader roadmap for alternative investment products and derivatives, including options, futures, ETFs, Global Philippine Depositary Receipts and a possible commodity futures market. It has began crafting the Philippine Capital Market Master Plan with the Asian Development Bank to provide a long-term roadmap for deepening the capital market and positioning the Philippines among Southeast Asia’s leading markets by 2030.

For fixed-income and credit market development, the agency is pursuing World Bank-supported public offering reforms to deepen the corporate bond market, including differentiated debt and equity disclosure rules exposed for public comment, a mid-market debt framework, a medium-term note program and streamlined securities registration.

The SEC has already issued the first regulatory framework for sukuk in the Philippines, covering issuance, registration, disclosure, permissible structures and continuing obligations for Shari’ah-compliant financing. It supported bond market development through the bond index inclusion initiative, improvements to the credit rating framework and work on high-yield bonds, including sub-AAA issuances.

It has also enhanced the shelf registration framework by allowing qualified issuers to register securities for continuous or delayed offering for up to five years.

It likewise adopted a 45-day review for Registration Statements, with actual processing averaging 40 days and discounts on assessed registration fees amounting to more than P10 million.

Furthermore, the SEC amended Rule 10 of the 2015 SRC-IRR to remove notice or payment of fees for Section 10.1 exempt transactions and adopted tiered minimum public ownership rules based on market capitalization, supporting large IPOs such as GCash parent Mynt’s proposed offering of up to P92.3 billion.