Transparency International anti-money laundering expert Maíra Martini said on Tuesday that the new global standard on beneficial ownership transparency will make public those who are hiding behind anonymous companies and help authorities, journalists and civil society to more effectively expose and fight corruption, money laundering and other financial crimes.

In 2019, global civil society organisation Transparency International asked the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to fix the global standard on beneficial ownership transparency.

The FATF is a global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog.

Transparency International specifically called for public, central registers as a key measure to end the decades-long abuse of anonymous companies around the world.

FATF’s revised recommendation 24 will now require every country to set up a beneficial ownership register or sufficient alternative to allow authorities to see who ultimately owns or controls a company.

Previously, the standard did not specify how company ownership information should be collected and made accessible to authorities. As a consequence, many countries relied on information held by banks.

Martini explained that this often impedes investigations, as authorities first need to know where the company banks. They may also require a court order and information held by banks is often unverified.

Martini said the new standard now requires countries to have three different mechanisms in place – with beneficial owners available from a register, from companies themselves and from supplementary sources like financial institutions.

“What is good about the new global standard is that countries can no longer choose one single mechanism. They have to have three things in place; they have to require companies to maintain that information on their beneficiary owners; they have to set up a register or an alternative mechanism and they have to rely on supplementary sources if they wish,” she said.

She added that another good thing about the standard is that it requires varied data.

However, Transparency International says it would be useful to have clear guidance on how the data should be verified and the responsibility should lay with the public authority.