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U.S. officials issued a final rule Thursday which parties can pull the names and other details of corporate beneficial owners from a federal database set to launch in January, granting the financial services industry much broader access to the registry than previously proposed.

The initial proposal pitched by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, one year ago would have limited financial institutions to accessing the database only for the purpose of complying with the bureau’s current customer due-diligence rule, which since 2018 has required them to identify anyone who owns 25 percent or more of any entity they intend to serve.

Thursday’s final rule broadens the definition of “customer due diligence” to encompass “any legal requirement or prohibition” aimed at preventing money laundering, combating terrorist financing or safeguarding U.S. national security that, in turn, obligates a financial institution “to obtain or verify beneficial ownership information of a legal entity customer.”

Banks, in other words, now have permission to access the impending database not only when onboarding corporate clients, but also for sanctions-compliance and anti-money laundering purposes more generally.

Federal law enforcement and national security agencies will, as FinCEN initially proposed, query the database on a case-by-case basis. But the final rule streamlines access for state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies, which need now only certify that they have received authorization from “a court of competent jurisdiction.”

The database, a key provision of the Corporate Transparency Act that came into force in January 2021, will begin collecting and holding the ownership details of tens of millions of limited liability companies, limited partnerships and other legal entities on Jan. 1, 2024.