The Malta Business Registry, also referred to as MBR or Registry, is responsible for the registration of new commercial partnerships, the registration of documents related to commercial partnership, the issuing of certified documentation including certificates of good-standing, among others, the reservation of company names, the collection of registration and other fees, the publication of notices and the imposition and collection of penalties. The Registry also conducts investigations of companies and keeps the company and partnership register.

According to its latest annual report, 4,472 commercial partnerships were registered in Malta last year, bringing the total to 98,090. It reported a surplus of €10.2 million for the financial year 2019, when operating expenses exceeded €5.2 million, investing €6.3 million in fixed assets and generating an income of just under €16 million. 

As for the Registry’s online platform, which was developed in 2004 and enhanced over the years, it was felt that the new technologies available in this era of the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and blockchain have made this the opportune moment to replace its current online system.

Beyond this, however, is the low client usage rate of the Registry’s online platform, as only about 15 per cent of clients use the current online system, Chief Operations Officer Kenneth Brincat explains. During the time the MBR’s offices were closed to the public because of the COVID-19 containment measures, the usage rate was circa 38 per cent. Essentially, he explains, this was down to the fact that clients had no other way of obtaining a fast service from the Registry at the time.

“Fuelled by analytics showing that the current platform is not popular, further research identified additional reasons that hinder our clients from using the portal, which mainly relate to its technological limitations,” Mr Brincat continues.

As part of its continuous effort to provide clients with the best possible service, the Registry is in the process of launching a new online platform, which will be up and running by the end of 2020 and uses the latest innovative technologies. Specifically, blockchain technology forms the new backbone for the storing of the Registry’s data, and Business Process Management (BPMN) is the new orchestrator for all business procedures performed by the MBR, Mr Brincat adds.

Adopting the new technologies triggered a complete overhaul of the MBR’s current system to remove all major deficiencies. Over time, he points out, the system will also help the Registry to streamline its internal processes in order to ensure that customer requests are dealt with in a timely and consistent manner. 

The MBR’s new technological infrastructure makes use of AI to perform and automate discrete tasks, such as determining how phonetically similar a company’s name is to all other existing and registered company names, as well as verifying identity documents for involved parties.

Furthermore, the development of the new system also means re-engineering the Registry’s data scheme to allow for a more accurate and efficient representation of all companies and involved parties. “Our system overhaul,” Mr Brincat promises, “is set to result in an improved and more practical service for our clients.”

The COO explains that the major setback of the MBR’s currently outdated system hinges on the identification of users and their digital signatures. To be an authorised user, one needs to have a Maltese identity (ID) card to be able to sign documents via the chip. The process results in several drawbacks that make it rather complex and burdensome for new users to obtain authorisation to perform actions directly on the system. Targeting this issue head-on, the Registry’s new platform has its own Identity Management protocol, which offers digital certificates for eIDAS-compliant Qualified Electronic Signatures whereby the MBR has control over the identities issued on its platform and can ensure that such identities are verified efficiently and effectively.

The core of the MBR’s revised system is being developed in the form of a Business Process Management engine that will work in conjunction with a permissioned distributed ledger to handle and manage workflows of processes performed by the MBR, Mr Brincat says. Customers will be able to initiate procedures directly on this engine, provided they have the necessary permissions.  

Such processes will be reviewed internally by MBR representatives and any resulting changes to data will be immediately reflected on the underlying distributed ledger. In addition, MBR employees will be able to manage these processes using the same ledger and this will increase the efficiency of the MBR’s operations and ensure they are all transparent and auditable. 

“In our new technological environment, the revised system processes will be managed using the hyperledger fabric blockchain development framework. The MBR is the first Registry in the world to be running a production ledger on the Azure Blockchain Service using hyperledger fabric as its underlying technology,” says Mr Brincat.

“We are also proud to announce that Microsoft has shown interest in our new blockchain infrastructure and discussions are underway to have our technology tested in their blockchain services environment. In doing so, the MBR’s technology will be the first worldwide to have its infrastructure introduced on blockchain services by Microsoft,” the COO explains.

Those using the Registry’s old system also came across a stumbling block when dealing with documents due to the portal’s lack of advanced capabilities in document management. The old system does not intrinsically handle versioning and revising of documents, and fails to automatically keep a clear audit trail of how submitted documents are changed from time to time.

Furthermore, it does not allow for any actions to be performed on documents within the system other than the uploading of PDF files. This, Mr Brincat points out, results in some process inefficiency when compared to more feature-intensive document management systems. The reason is that the management of documents is not directly integrated with the MBR’s workflows of processes within the system used to perform them. 

Conversely, the new structure contains a document management system with industry-standard features that one should expect nowadays, he notes. The document management system will be fully integrated with the hyperledger fabric blockchain and will guarantee that the management of documents and their relative processes can be carried out in a unified manner, ensuring that all versions of documents are logged, stored and available to the MBR as needed, Mr Brincat continues. 

The new structure is also meant to facilitate workflow management by focusing on the configuration of work within the Registry and how stakeholders collaborate to complete this work. All relevant processes will be made visible to all stakeholders and this, he says, will allow for business process improvement over time. As a result, the Registry is expected to streamline and standardise its way of dealing with its processes and communicating with its external stakeholders. “The outcome will be a more efficient and transparent modus operandi in which an audit trail of all actions is held,” the COO asserts.

While blockchain is considered to be an important part of the revised system as it manages the data layer, he remarks that the business process management system is a vital tool within the new platform.

The MBR’s role, Mr Brincat adds, can be described as a collection of business processes performed to offer services to citizens and non-citizens. Through its revised technological infrastructure, all the Registry’s processes will be documented, designed and described as executable business workflows through the use of industry-standard languages and technologies (BPMN).

Importantly, he points out, the MBR is the first Registry in the world to use such technologies in conjunction with blockchain at the backend layer. BPMN will help the MBR run more efficiently, be more transparent and have a clear view of all ongoing operations at any point in time, he observes. Additionally, blockchain technology will help the Registry share data with trusted counterparts in an efficient and completely transparent manner.

“The hyperledger fabric framework will allow participants in the network to be identified,” Mr Brincat notes. “Since it is a permissioned network, different access rights can be granted to various individuals and organisations, allowing the MBR to maintain fine-grained control over how sensitive data is shared and used.”

“The Registry’s system overhaul project is the first step in enabling a digital ecosystem for Maltese companies. In the future, the goal is to integrate other entities or institutions into the blockchain and implement BPMN processes that span across multiple bodies,” he adds. “We will then see more efficient business processes across entities of public interest, resulting in a better end service for our clients. Streamlining the way different entities cooperate and share data between each other will ensure that all processes and interactions are secure, auditable and fully transparent.”

“The ultimate winner from all this will be the citizen,” Mr Brincat concludes.

This feature was first carried in the October/November edition of Digital Island.