A Certificate of Incorporation is issued by the company registry when a company comes into existence. In Hong Kong the Registrar of Companies issues it under the Companies Ordinance (Cap. 622) once the incorporation form (NNC1) and articles are registered; it states the company name, the company number and the date of incorporation. Since 27 December 2023 the number on a new Hong Kong certificate is the company's Business Registration Number, which the Registry adopted as its Unique Business Identifier. Mainland China has no separate certificate: the business licence issued by the market regulator serves the same purpose and carries the Unified Social Credit Code. Registrars in the BVI, the Cayman Islands, Singapore, Malaysia and India each issue their own version.
What it proves and what it does not
The certificate proves that the company was formed on a date and under a name. It does not show that the company still exists, that the name is still the same, or who runs it now. A company can change its name, be struck off or be wound up with the certificate unchanged. The AML guidelines accept it as part of the evidence of a corporate customer's identity, together with a registry search that shows current status.
Why it matters
Onboarding checklists ask for the certificate because it is the oldest document in the file. The current record is the registry search; for a company incorporated years ago, a certificate of good standing or a current registry extract shows that it is still live.
How Fill Easy relates to it
CorpVerify can return the certificate from the registry as a filed document image, and a company particulars search confirms the current name, status and name history. A real Indian certificate is among the samples listed in the API documentation.