The Electronic Transaction Act has been hailed as a piece of legislation that will revolutionise the way business is conducted at the Companies of Jamaica (COJ), because it will facilitate an electronic signature.

Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the COJ, Shellie Leon, said, "With the passing of the act and the regulations, which we are looking forward to, persons will be able to go online, pay for a service online, complete their form online and affix an electronic signature to documents." She further pointed out that the regulations when instituted "will identify the specific methods of protection of the identity, protection of an electronic signature and indeed the integrity of the whole system".

Miss Leon said that this development was of great importance to the COJ and its customers as it would lower cost for both parties and save time on the registration process. "We have documents at the COJ, which the law says must be signed. Signature under the present regime means one has to physically affix a signature to a document," Ms. Leon pointed out.

Another challenge for the COJ, she highlighted, was processing customers within a 15-minute time frame. She explained that this activity was very time consuming because of the number of forms that have to be completed and processed. "When we check for example, the number of customers who come in to register a business name, it would be phenomenal if such customers could simply sit at their computers and register those documents," she said.