Terms and conditions

These terms and conditions set out what's required when you use our online services. They help ensure that the information you provide us is kept secure, and that the information we must make available to the public is accurate and as up to date as possible.

Using the Business Registers

The Business Registers (Registers) are administered by the Companies Office, which is part of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). You’re being asked to agree to these terms and conditions for the use of our online services, so please read them carefully and ensure you understand them. If you choose to accept them and continue to create an online services account and/or use our online services, these terms and conditions will form an agreement between you and MBIE.

Our commitment to you

If you agree to our terms and conditions, we’ll use all reasonable care and skill to:

• provide online services that are easy to use, with online help and guidance
• make these services available 24/7 — excluding maintenance and outages
• provide you with voice and email support from our Business Service Centre during normal business hours — but not on public holidays
• keep all non-public information you've provided to us secure from unauthorised access
• only allow authorised users to change information you've provided to us
• ensure that information we provide about our services is kept up to date.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) transparency statement describes the kind of information MBIE gathers to ensure it can effectively:

• protect people, information, and places
• ensure regulatory compliance, and
• detect and prevent criminal offending.

Disclaimer

MBIE doesn’t accept any responsibility or liability for:

• the accuracy or content of material on the Business Registers
• any loss you incur in connection with your use of these services, including any costs and expenses.

Visitors to this website should take specific advice from qualified, professional people before undertaking any action as a result of information accessed on this website.

Your commitment to us

You agree that you will:

• abide by the terms of use governing the RealMe® login service (or any other login system approved by the relevant Registrar) by which you access our services
• not knowingly or recklessly use, or attempt to use, any of our services for a purpose for which it wasn't intended, including any unlawful purpose
• notify our Business Service Centre immediately if you know, or have reason to believe, that there has been, or is about to be, fraudulent or other unlawful use of any of our services.

If you’re an administrator of an organisation's online services account, you also agree to:

• manage access to our services by other users who are added to your organisation account, by:
• keeping user information updated, and
• closing user accounts if users no longer need access to our services via your organisation
• manage delegated authorities, which provide your organisation with the ability to make use of our services on behalf of other users.

If you grant delegated authority to allow another user to access our services on your behalf, you agree to:

• acknowledge that you’re granting that user the right to make use of our services on your behalf, including but not limited to, the amendment of data in relation to the organisation that has had delegated authority applied to it
• accept that any action performed by users to whom you’ve granted delegated authority is, in effect, being done on your behalf and that you’re responsible for any actions they perform on your behalf.

If you accept delegated authority to make use of our services on behalf of another user, you agree to:

• acknowledge that you’re accepting the right to make use of our services on their behalf, including but not limited to, the amendment of data for an entity over which you have delegated authority
• acknowledge that any action performed by you in relation to any delegated authority you’ve been granted is made in the knowledge that you’re acting on behalf of the user who has granted you that authority.

The purpose of your commitment is to protect the integrity and security of:

• our online services, and
• the information provided by you and other people who use these services.

If you don’t honour your commitment, third parties may be able to take actions that appear to be on your behalf. These actions may result in a breach of security or privacy, and you may be held responsible for this.

Access to our services

Access to our services is governed by your RealMe® (or any other authorised third party login provider), which provides us with security over access to our sites and identifies who you are.

RealMe® — what it is

You are responsible for keeping your username and password confidential. Any actions on our sites from your username and password will be considered by us to have been made by you.

RealMe (or any other authorised third party login provider) let you access our registers and connect you to your user account with MBIE.

Your user account provides us with associated information, including:

• details about you — for example, your email address
• services you’ve opted to use
• organisation you’re linked to, if any
• details you’re authorised to edit for the organisation you’re linked to— for example, registering financing statements
• whether you’re an administrator for an organisation registered with us
• whether you’ve been delegated the authority to act on behalf of any other user(s).

If you’re an administrator for an organisation, you can set up additional accounts for other users attached to that organisation to use our services. Any users you create will need to obtain their own login before they can activate their user account with us.

Fees and levies

You’re responsible for the payment of fees and levies for the services we provide you with under your online services account, no matter who uses it. If there's a charge for the service you're using, you'll be advised of the amount due at the end of the transaction, and taken to our payment gateway.

Credit or debit card payment option

We accept credit or debit card payment. We offer secure credit and debit card transactions using 256-bit SSL encryption technology. Your transaction is validated in real time and confirmed immediately to you by email. A tax invoice will appear on screen that you are able to print for your own records if you wish.

We accept the following credit and debit cards:

• Visa
• Mastercard
• American Express
• Diners

Internet banking payment option

We offer internet banking payment option, which allows you to make use of our services and authorise a direct credit payment from your bank account. This payment option is only available to individuals who agree to the Payment Express Terms and Conditions prior to authorising the payment. These are as follows:

• Payment Express will not be liable to you or any other party for any loss (including indirect, consequential or special loss), damage, cost or expense, however caused (including through negligence), suffered or incurred by you or any other party arising out of, or in connection with, your use of Payment Express.
• Payment Express disclaims all warranties, conditions and representations, express or implied, in respect of your use of and in any event your sole and exclusive remedy for any breach by Payment Express of an implied warranty, condition or representation is the re-supply of the Payment Express service.
• Payments made by you using Payment Express will be subject to your financial institution’s terms and conditions. By using Payment Express you warrant and agree that you are the owner of the account from which you’re making a payment, you are authorised to make payments from that account, and any refunds agreed to be paid should be credited to the same account from which the initial payment was made.

Direct debit payment option

We offer a direct debit payment option that allows customers to make use of our services, charge them to an account, receive an invoice at the end of each month and pay by direct debit on the 20th of the following month. This option can be adopted by an organisation or by an individual user to pay fees.

If you select the direct debit payment option, we will email you a Direct Debit Authority Form to complete and return to us.

Credit checks

We may perform a credit check on your organisation (or you, if you’re applying for the direct debit payment option for your own user account) through a credit reference agency.

We reserve the right to decline any direct debit payment option request, based on the results of any credit reference check, or based on past history of fees payment with MBIE.

Monthly invoices

At the beginning of each month, you’ll be emailed an invoice detailing all fee-bearing services used during the previous month. The invoices and other notices will be sent to the email address you've given us. We, and anyone to whom we've assigned the amounts you owe us, can assume any invoice or notice sent electronically has been delivered on sending, unless we receive a 'Failed to Deliver' message.

If you don’t receive an invoice by email, a copy of your invoice will be available online. You will also have access to your transactions through our online fees search facility, or you can download a data file containing the list of transactions.

Incorrect invoices

Call the contact number or email the address displayed on your invoice if you think there is a mistake with your invoice. Any incorrect fees will be credited to your account. If the query has been received and processed prior to the 20th of the month, this will reduce the amount to be direct debited. Queries received or processed after the 20th will be credited to your next month’s invoice.

Non-payment

If the direct debit payment is not successful against your bank account, we will follow up with you to find out why.

First month of dishonour

We’ll contact you to determine what went wrong and work with you to resolve the problem, ready for the direct debit run the following month.

Second month of dishonour

Your account will be restricted to the credit card payment option only. We’ll contact you to arrange payment of the due amount.

If payment is not received

In the first instance, we'll contact you to understand why the fees and levies have not been paid, and ask you to make the payment.

If fees and levies are still not paid, we’ll look to revoke the service that we’ve provided to you. For example, we'll take steps to remove the financing statements from the register that you have registered. If revoking the service isn’t possible, then we may refer the matter to a debt collection agency. You may be required to pay any costs that are incurred in recovering the money you owe us.

We may vary the steps in this process, depending on your individual circumstances.

Unlawful access or use

If you knowingly access or use, or attempt to access or use (or allow an unauthorised person to access or use), any of our services for an unlawful purpose (including but not limited to fraud or attempted fraud or hacking or attempted hacking), you'll be liable to pay any party (or MBIE on its behalf) the amount of the loss suffered by them caused directly or indirectly by your actions. For the avoidance of doubt, this clause isn't intended to confer benefits enforceable by third parties under the Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017.

Suspension of your online services account

For the protection of users, other people, or MBIE itself, we may suspend or disable your online services account without notice if we consider that:

• disabling your online services account is necessary to maintain the integrity or security of our services or any organisation or person
• the online services account is being misused or has otherwise been compromised, or
• you breach these terms and conditions.

Where appropriate, we’ll notify you if we suspend or disable your online services account as soon as practicable after doing so.

Privacy

The privacy statement for our services applies to your personal information collected by MBIE.

By registering for an online services account and agreeing to these terms and conditions, you'll be regarded as having read and agreed to the terms of that privacy statement. Make sure you've read and are comfortable with the privacy statement before agreeing to these terms and conditions.

Privacy

Public information

Business Registers are public registers, and the Registrar is required to make certain information relating to your business and provided by you available to the public.

Email address privacy

We won't disclose your email address to third parties, but we may use it to update you with information about our services.

Disputes

If you have a dispute with MBIE in connection with these terms and conditions or any of our services, call our Business Service Centre. Both you and our Business Service Centre will use all reasonable efforts in good faith to resolve the dispute. If you and our Business Service Centre can't resolve the dispute to your satisfaction, you may ask the Business Service Centre to escalate the dispute to the appropriate MBIE representative.

Contact us

MBIE will then promptly contact you to try to resolve the dispute with you. If, following this, the dispute is still not resolved to your satisfaction, you may take such action as you consider appropriate, such as making a complaint to the Ombudsman or commencing legal proceedings.

Invalidity or unenforceability

If any of these terms and conditions, or their application to any person or circumstances is, to any extent, held to be invalid or unenforceable:

• the remainder of these terms and conditions or the application of such terms and conditions to any other person or circumstances shall not be affected
• each term shall be valid and enforceable to the extent permitted by law
• the invalid or unenforceable term will be deemed to be amended to reflect, as nearly as possible, the original intention (as determined from this website).

Amendments to terms and conditions and privacy statement

We can revise these terms and conditions and the privacy statement from time to time. We will advise you of any changes by a notice on this website. Your continued use of our services, through the act of making use of your online services account with us, indicates your acceptance of those changes.

Privacy

Contact us

If you have any questions about our Terms & Conditions, please contact our Business Service Centre.

Contact us