By Dipo Olowookere
A new online registration portal to make the process of profiling professionals in the financial reporting sector in the country easier has been launched by the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC) in line with the federal government’s executive order on ease of doing business.
The new platform was unveiled in Lagos recently by the Executive Secretary of FRC, Mr Daniel Asapokhai,who said the new portal supersedes the one introduced in 2013.
The FRC chief said the new registration platform will ensure members’ names appear on the online register of professionals, making it easier for members of the public to verify status of any financial reporting agent before any business transaction.
He therefore, called on accountants and other professionals involved in the financial reporting process to leverage on its new individual registration portal to boost their businesses with both government and the public.
Explaining the reason for the new initiative, Mr Asapokhai said the council started registering individual professionals in 2013 when identification means such as National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and Biometric Verification Number (BVN) were not available. He noted that the challenges that came with using biometric process for individual registration six years ago had been eliminated with the existence of the new portal, stressing that the adoption of the new identification means became necessary as they can be readily accessed.
“In 2019, I think we should be able to leverage on all of these and it also accord with the philosophy of government that identities data bases should be consolidated in the country.
“So, I think it is a good we are taking advantages of the improvements that have occurred in the environment to make life easier for people that we are dealing with,” he said.
According to him, the new portal would reduce the footprint of information that the council holds. “In the past, we would collect all your biometric information, and store it in our system. In this new improvement, we don’t even have to collect that information.”
“So, the footprint of the data we are collecting is much reduced. We are relying on what exists in the national database. It is partly to address the risk of security issues. So, we are minimising the information we need to hold.
“The portal also reduces the registration process period to the barest minimum. With the new individual registration portal, we expect to issue registration numbers within 48 hours after success completion of the online registration process,” he added.
