By LUCY OGALUE

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) says its Artificial Intelligence (AI) business registration portal now processes over 11,000 transactions daily, despite some ongoing challenges.

In a statement on Sunday, CAC management said it was working to address identity verification and payment difficulties affecting smooth portal operations.

Launched on June 30, the AI system issues registration certificates within 30 minutes, once a director?s National Identification Number (NIN) is confirmed.

The new workflow allows users to test multiple business names without paying upfront, reducing start-up costs and eliminating repeated name search fees.

According to the commission, about 8,000 name reservations were processed in one day?work that previously took nearly two weeks on the old manual system.

The statement read In part: ?You can?t compare AI with humans for service delivery. We now handle over 11,000 cases daily.

?Last Friday alone, we received 8,000 name reservation requests, all processed the same day. That would have taken two weeks manually.

?We receive a minimum of 3,000 complaint emails daily. So automation through intelligence is necessary. It?s a change we must accept.?

The commission noted that recent portal slowdowns are mainly caused by issues with external partners.

It said the National Identity Management Commission?s (NIMC) verification portal has been offline for weeks, blocking automatic NIN confirmation.

There have also been intermittent timeouts on REMITA, the government?s payment gateway, which disrupted fee collection processes.

CAC said it has requested Treasury approval for another payment channel to ensure continuity during REMITA downtimes.

It added that stamp duty remittances pause whenever the ProTax platform experiences outages.

According to CAC, security has been enhanced with one-time passwords for every transaction, preventing unauthorised filings but causing concerns among registration agents.

The commission is gradually deploying software updates to restore annual return and post-incorporation services affected by the AI migration.

It confirmed that the fee adjustment announced in June will take effect on 1 August to fund further technology improvements.

A dedicated help desk portal now manages around 3,000 emails daily, with feedback helping refine user experience.

CAC said supporting infrastructure should stabilise soon, offering faster, more affordable, and secure registration services for investors.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that some lawyers, acting as registration agents, have expressed frustration with the portal.

They said the system has been inaccessible for weeks, preventing name searches, business registrations, and the filing of post-incorporation documents and annual returns.

The situation, they added, could deter potential investors and raise broader concerns over Nigeria?s ease of doing business. (NAN)

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