CAC at 35: How Nigeria’s Corporate Registry is Becoming a Digital Backbone for MSME Growth

As Nigeria grapples with the dual challenge of economic formalisation and private-sector–led growth, one institution has quietly become a structural enabler rather than a bureaucratic bottleneck. At 35, the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) is no longer merely a registrar of companies; it is fast becoming a digital backbone of Nigeria’s enterprise economy.

The anniversary is not symbolic. It comes at a moment when MSMEs are expected to absorb job losses, expand the tax base, and anchor inclusive growth. CAC’s reforms therefore speak directly to Nigeria’s most urgent economic questions: how to formalise at scale, how to lower the cost of entry, and how to rebuild trust in corporate regulation.

Context: From Manual Registry to Digital Infrastructure

When CAC was established, corporate registration in Nigeria was paper-driven, location-bound, and slow—often taking weeks and requiring physical presence in Abuja or state offices. That model was incompatible with a modern, entrepreneurial economy.

Over the past decade, and accelerating sharply in recent years, CAC has transitioned into a fully digital, end-to-end registry, enabling business owners—both within Nigeria and in the diaspora—to register and manage entities remotely, at any time.

According to Hussaini Magaji, Registrar-General of the CAC, the Commission now operates a 24/7 digital service model that allows entrepreneurs to formalise businesses “from their rooms,” eliminating physical friction from one of the most critical entry points into the formal economy.

Core Analysis: The Reforms That Changed the Game

1. Digitalisation as Economic Policy

CAC’s transformation is not merely administrative; it is macro-relevant. By removing location and time barriers, digital registration:

• Reduces informal business persistence

• Shortens time-to-market for startups

• Improves Nigeria’s ease-of-doing-business metrics

In effect, CAC has turned corporate registration into economic infrastructure rather than paperwork.

2. Database Integrity and Market Trust

In 2025 alone, CAC de-registered over 400,000 inactive and non-compliant companies. This was not a punitive exercise; it was a market-cleansing intervention.

An inflated, inaccurate companies register undermines:

• Credit assessment

• Investor due diligence

• Law-enforcement effectiveness

By sanitising its database, CAC is strengthening confidence in Nigeria’s corporate information ecosystem—an often overlooked pillar of capital formation.

3. MSME Formalisation at Scale

In partnership with Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), CAC facilitated free business registration for 250,000 entrepreneurs.

This intervention directly addresses one of the biggest barriers to formalisation: cost. By lowering entry thresholds, CAC is nudging informal operators into the regulated economy—expanding financial inclusion, improving access to credit, and broadening the future tax base without coercion.

4. Beneficial Ownership: Transparency With Teeth

The operationalisation of Nigeria’s Beneficial Ownership Register is arguably CAC’s most globally significant reform.

The register enables regulators, investors, and the public to identify ultimate company owners, aligning Nigeria with global anti-money-laundering (AML) and corporate-transparency standards.

More importantly, it:

• Reduces anonymous shell-company abuse

• Strengthens Nigeria’s credibility with international partners

• Supports financial-crime enforcement

In a global environment of heightened scrutiny, this reform positions Nigeria as a serious jurisdiction, not a regulatory outlier.

Implications: What CAC’s Evolution Means for Nigeria

For MSMEs

Formalisation is no longer intimidating or expensive. This unlocks:

• Bank financing

• Government procurement opportunities

• Structured growth pathways

For Investors

Cleaner registries and ownership transparency reduce information asymmetry—lowering risk premiums attached to Nigerian businesses.

For Policymakers

CAC demonstrates that institutional reform can be both pro-business and pro-regulation. Digital governance is not deregulation; it is smarter enforcement.

For the Economy

A more formal MSME sector means:

• Better employment data

• Improved productivity measurement

• More resilient economic planning

Forward Outlook: The Next Phase of Corporate Regulation

As CAC enters its next decade, the strategic challenge shifts from access to intelligence. The future registry will not only record entities but actively support:

• Risk-based compliance monitoring

• Inter-agency data integration

• Credit and identity verification systems

If leveraged properly, CAC’s data assets could become central to Nigeria’s digital public infrastructure—supporting finance, taxation, and industrial policy.

BRANDECONOMY Insight

CAC’s quiet revolution proves a larger point about Nigeria’s reform journey: institutions matter more than slogans.

By digitising access, cleaning its data, and lowering the cost of formalisation, CAC has attacked informality at its roots rather than its symptoms. At 35, the Commission stands as evidence that when regulatory agencies modernise with intent, they can unlock growth rather than inhibit it.

Nigeria’s next growth leap will not come from oil or subsidies—it will come from millions of small, formal, productive enterprises. CAC has positioned itself as one of the country’s most consequential enablers of that future.