The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) yesterday started piloting a system of electronic registration of Australian companies over the Internet.
ASIC officials said the new system would let its clients electronically prepare applications for registration, digitally sign them using private keys stored on cryptographic smart cards and transmit them to the commission over the Internet.
"When ASIC receives these documents it will authenticate the application, process it back into the national corporate database and transmit the certificate of registration back to the client," the officials said.
"The system also allows associated payments to be made electronically."
The pilot is scheduled to continue until the end of December, when the system is expected to be released nationally.