Early impacts of public beneficial ownership registers: United Kingdom

The UK’s leading approach

1. A free-to-access public register

In 2015, the UK government introduced new provisions into the Small Business Enterprise and Employment Act to establish a free, publicly accessible register with information on beneficial owners of UK companies.[6] The register came online in 2016, and members of the public are able to access it free of charge and without the need for registration. Use of the data is licensed by statute, imposing no rules or requirements on how the information on the register is used.[7] Combined with the digital approach to collecting and publishing data, this has led to the register being widely used.

2. A digital approach to maximise data use

The UK took a highly digital approach to implementing the PSC register. Companies are able to register and update PSC information online. The data is available to the public on a record-by-record basis, where users can search by company name, company number, and officer name, although not by PSC name. In addition, data is available in bulk via daily data snapshots from Companies House as well as through an application programming interface (API) as structured machine-readable data. This has allowed users throughout civil society and the private sector to access and analyse the full register data.[8] These measures have led to impressive use of the PSC register, with over 9.4 billion searches made in 2019.[9] Data is routinely ingested into software operated by private sector and civil society, including the Global Open Ownership register (GOOR)[10] and commercial due diligence databases.

3. Iterative approach to improving data quality

Following the launch of the PSC register in 2016, Companies House has been responsive to feedback from data users identifying potential improvements. Large scale analysis by civil society actors in 2018 was cited multiple times in the UK government’s subsequent public consultation on proposed improvements, and several of the recommendations have been incorporated into the government’s proposed reforms.[11] The civil society analysis found instances of suspicious and seemingly inaccurate information, highlighting a significant gap in the register’s effectiveness to tackle corruption and money laundering, and calling for the information to be verified.[12] This was underscored by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) evaluation, which recommended that the UK improves the quality of information in the register by verifying the data.[13] The UK government embraced this feedback and has consulted on widespread potential reforms to the PSC register, including granting Companies House legal powers to verify the data.[14] In September 2020, the government announced its intention to implement these reforms, which if achieved in full would significantly improve data quality.[15]

4. Mobilising international ambition

The UK has leveraged its early adoption of beneficial ownership transparency (BOT) to encourage other countries to implement public registers. Countries such as Nigeria have cited the UK’s PSC register as an example they have drawn from when establishing their own PSC register.[16] In 2016, the UK government hosted an International Anti-Corruption Summit in London, securing solid commitments towards BOT from many of the 43 attending countries.[17] These commitments, alongside an increasing number of country commitments made within the framework of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), led to the UK working with OO. In 2019, OO and the OGP established an international Beneficial Ownership Leadership Group.[18] Through this forum, the UK has shared insights from its PSC implementation with other countries.

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