Corporate registries are evolving into active gatekeepers, reshaping global compliance as countries adopt stricter verification, smarter data standards, and real time transparency.
Steve Lamb is the CEO of Kyckr. Steve has been a key part of Kyckr’s leadership team since joining as Head of Product in 2020 and is a recognised authority in Know Your Business (KYB) and Anti-money Laundering (AML) practices, with extensive experience in the field of corporate registry data.
The fight against financial crime is at a crucial juncture.
Recent high-profile incidents, such as the BBC’s expose on illegal mini-marts and vape shops across the UK, have shone a light on the important role corporate registries play in the fight against money laundering, tax evasion, and terrorist financing.
While corporate registries are one piece of the larger puzzle, they provide a vital tool for obliged entities – banks, fintechs, professional services, asset exchanges, legal and consulting firms to name a few – to verify company ownership as part of KYC/KYB processes.
As the BBC story and other reports highlight, criminals have learned to exploit loopholes in the current corporate registry setup – such as the ability to self-declare and a lack of verification at submission – to hide illicit activities behind the facade of legitimate businesses.
However, reforms are in motion. The role registries play is changing from neutral record-keepers to active gatekeepers, who not only store information, but verify that it is a truthful representation. Advances in technology are underpinning this change, and a quiet revolution is underway in corporate registries.
Here are the corporate registry trends you need to know about as we head into 2026:
- Registries as gatekeepers, not librarians
I touched on this in the introduction, but it’s worth exploring how corporate registries are beginning to take on a more active role. Instead of simply storing information from companies, they’re verifying it at the point of submission or exercising greater enforcement powers.
Singapore is a standout example. ACRA, its Account and Corporate Regulatory Authority, uses data analytics to detect suspicious behaviour among corporate service providers and struck off 50,000 entities for non-compliance in 2024 alone.
The United Kingdom’s corporate registry, Companies House, is going along a similar route. From November 2025 onwards, they will verify the identity of directors.
From my conversations with registry officials, verified information is becoming the norm among OECD countries, rather than the exception.
For financial institutions and other obliged entities, this changes the calculus. Verified registry data will become the new gold standard, replacing self-declared information at onboarding.
- Data standards gaining steam
Registries have typically spoken in their own data ‘languages’, making global verification a headache. Now, initiatives like the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard and the EU’s Business Registers Interconnection System are pushing for harmonised, comparable data formats, something we’ll see gain steam in 2026.
- The use of global identifiers
Global identifiers will support this trend towards data harmonisation. Arising out of the 2008 financial crisis, global identifiers are strings of alphanumeric code unique to business entities that follow an internationally recognised standard. It’s essentially the corporate registry equivalent of a SWIFT code.
A good example of a global identifiers is the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI), a 20-character, alphanumeric code based on the ISO 17442 standard. These are already mandatory in the USA, UK, EU and Canada for some entities, and we’ll see many other countries adopting their usage in 2026.
- APIs and Open Data leveraged for real-time access
APIs and Open Data initiatives now allow instant, real-time access to corporate information across jurisdictions; fintechs across the UK, Estonia, New Zealand, Belgium and others already benefit from this. Others are following suit, such as Ireland and Malta.
This move will enable financial crime teams around the world to connect to live data from multiple sources in a workflow. And, if that data is harmonised – structured similarly – verification and onboarding will be much quicker, and defences against financial crime stronger.
- Beneficial Ownership access: a tug of war between privacy and transparency
The EU’s ruling limiting public access to ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) data introduced a conundrum: how do you balance privacy rights with the need for transparency? Access is now restricted to parties with “legitimate interest,” creating patchy and confusing rules across Europe.
Reforms are in the pipeline, but progress is uneven. In May 2024, the EU attempted to reform this fragmented system with the passage of the 6AMLD, which sought to harmonise those legitimate interest access rules.
By September 2025, the Commission opened infringement proceedings against 11 member states for failing to implement those rules.
This is positive change. Banks are between a rock and a hard place: they must verify businesses but are often severely limited in what reliable and independent information they can access. Expect this tug of war to continue throughout 2026.
- Digital-only filing picks up pace
Behind every great registry improvement lies digitisation. Moving away from paper-based filings to fully digital submissions is foundational – it allows for better data quality, verification, API integration, and automation.
Countries like Cyprus and Vietnam are racing to complete this digital transition by 2026, laying the groundwork for smarter, more secure registries worldwide.
- Interconnectivity finally on the rise
Registries need to break out of siloes. Countries like Estonia and Denmark have integrated registries with tax, law enforcement, and corporate databases, creating a web of interconnectivity that improves oversight and speeds up fraud detection.
The UK’s Economic Crime and Transparency Act mandates proactive data sharing with enforcement agencies, showing a commitment to moving from reactive oversight to proactive prevention.
The implications for financial crime teams in 2026
Financial crime teams know they can’t rely on self-declared company information anymore. In the coming years, verification, transparency, and cross-border data standards must become the new baseline.
Teams that integrate robust, real-time registry data will be best positioned to spot risk, cut out costly duplication, and move ahead of regulatory changes.
The direction is clear: passive acceptance out, active gatekeeping in. To keep up, obliged entities should start building these enhanced registry sources into their compliance workflows now.
About Kyckr:
Kyckr is a B2B information services company that aggregates, organises and structures the world’s primary source company data to help businesses reduce the risks associated with counterparty relationships. Kyckr’s solutions help businesses to succeed in the fight against fraud, money laundering and financial crime.
To learn more about Kyckr, visit www.kyckr.com
