Business name Certificates issue as “digitally certified” documents since August 2016. These Digital Certificates replaced the paper Business Names Certificates. The Digital Certificates are emailed as a pdf document to the email address selected by the presenter on the form submitted to register the trading name. This facilitates immediate receipt of certification by the presenter as soon as the document has been registered.
The format of the Certificate did not change and the Digital Certificates contains all of the information previously displayed on the paper Certificates. The signature of the officer registering the trading name on behalf of the Registrar appears on the Digital Certificate.
The Digital Certificates contain the following security features:-
The pdf document contains a coloured banner at the top of the screen to confirm that it has been digitally signed as certified by the CRO. This provides an assurance to the recipient that the document is authentic, has not been tampered with and has been independently verified as sourced in CRO. The digitally certified document is the electronic equivalent of adding a notarised, wet ink signature. A representation of these features is detailed below:-
Presenters can provide these digital certificates directly to third parties such as by email as required.