British businesses must collect and store data on their beneficial owners as of Wednesday, under a milestone deadline for the U.K.'s plan to launch a public register aimed at improving corporate transparency.
Beneficial owners of a particularly opaque corporate structure described by critics as the United Kingdom's "home-grown secrecy vehicle" must be identified from Monday onward under national rules designed to ensure compliance with EU anti-money laundering regulations.
A U.K. plan to require foreign businesses to disclose their owners when purchasing property would give bank compliance teams more data to sift through and more work to complete, say industry experts.