The country has launched a digital platform that eliminates the need for business owners to bring numerous documented proof when transacting with the government, thus streamlining the application and renewal of business permits.
The Web-based Philippine Business Data Bank (PBDB) system allows government agencies to verify the existence of a business entity using a single-reference document.
The Department of Information and Communications Technology, which manages the system, said the verification of a specific business entity is limited to exact name searches, which prevents users from resorting to random searches of phishing.
The information in the PBDB database is initially provided by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Cooperative Development Authority and the local government units, starting with Quezon City.
The PBDB will, in the future, include business data of economic locators doing business in the different economic zones of the Philippines.
Finance Undersecretary Gil S. Beltran said the PBDB system is among the initiatives of the Department of Finance as lead agency of the government’s anti-red tape program to improve the ease of doing business in the country.
Beltran said it will also involve the DTI, which chairs the National Competitiveness Council, the SEC, the country’s economic zones and over 1,600 local government units.
The PBDB was developed by a team from the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the Department of Science and Technology and managed by the Department of Information and Communications Technology.