This website is where you find the Fiji Personal Property Securities Registry. It is where you will register notices of security interests in movable property (collateral) and to search for notices of other existing security interests. If you have agreed to take a security interest (a pledge or a charge) in movable property of someone (the debtor) to secure their obligation to you (usually an obligation to repay money) you may register a notice here to inform others of your security interest. In order to check for prior security interests in collateral that is offered to you as security for an obligation, you may search the Registry's records through this website.
In a typical situation under the Act, a going business or an entrepreneur (the debtor) contacts a lender (secured party) to apply for a loan for the business. The debtor may offer the secured party a security charge over the business' equipment, its inventory, accounts receivable or other assets. The lender would first search the records of the Personal Property Securities Registry via the internet to see whether the assets being offered as collateral are subject to a prior security interest. For companies, the search will be made using the company registration number and name maintained by the Registrar of Companies in Fiji. If the debtor is a individual citizen of Fiji, the search uses their TIN. If the proposed collateral is a motor vehicle the search must also be made on the motor vehicle serial/VIN. If there is no prior notice of a security interest against the proposed collateral, the secured party can then enter the loan agreement with the debtor with confidence of its priority in the collateral against other lenders. The secured party would want to register its own notice of a security interest over the collateral prior to disbursing the loan proceeds. Filing this notice in the PPSR gives the filer priority position in the collateral in the event the debtor defaults.
If the potential lender finds in its search that a notice of security interest in the proposed collateral has already been registered by another person, it has several options. The potential lender may contact the prior secured party to determine if the existing obligation is small enough that there is sufficient excess value in the collateral to secure the proposed loan, and then register its own notice of security interest (in this case, the second-to-file would have secondary priority in the collateral). Conversely, the potential lender may try to obtain an agreement with the prior secured party to subordinate (make second) the prior interest to the current secured party's security interest, and then register a notice. Or the secured party may simply decide not to lend based upon the presence of the prior notice because the credit risk of the prior security interest is too great.
The reason for registering a notice of a security interest is to establish a creditor's priority rights in a debtor's collateral. The first creditor to register a notice will almost always have priority in the collateral over all other creditors should the debtor (borrower) default. Because of this, if a prior security interest is registered, then a current prospective creditor (or buyer) may not obtain priority (or clean title) in the movable property being pledged a collateral (or sold) and may wish to reconsider their business transaction. Therefore, the reason for searching Personal Property Securities Registry records is to discover whether there may be a pre-existing security interest in the property of a debtor.
The Reserve Bank of Fiji has been designated as the Registrar for the Personal Property Securities Registry. However, almost all business with the Registry is conducted on-line through this website, meaning there is rarely any need to visit the Reserve Bank. The Registrar is responsible for administering the website and collecting applicable filing fees, but filers are responsible for entering the information required to make a legally proper filing in the online registry. The Registrar does not review any filings. Therefore, it is up to the filer to provide the relevant information. If you have questions or need help with navigating the website, you may contact the Tech Support Desk by clicking the Technical Support link on the Welcome page on the website. The Tech Support Desk will review your query and respond within a short time.
