Company Register data a critical issue for financial crime prevention
Up to 20% of data filed in the Swedish company register is incomplete and updating information remains a challenge. Advisense participated in Transparency International Sweden´s seminar on Unique Beneficiary Owners, arranged in Stockholm on the 24th of May. Joining a panel with e.g. Swedish Companies Registration Office (Bolagsverket) and the Financial Police, Advisense's Louise Brown discussed the criticality of the company register for combatting financial crime including corruption and money-laundering.
Some key take-aways from FCG’s position at the seminar
- The quality of a company register decides its usefulness. The Swedish company register is currently incomplete which is a cause for concern. It needs to be complete, quality assured and updated.
- The register is of critical importance to financial institutes and the KYC process. The ability to ensure correct UBO data is crucial, not only because institutes want to be able to trust the information, but also because it is critical with regards to preventing corruption, money laundering and the ability to follow sanctions regulations.
- The need for and the purpose of the register needs to be clearly understood. Considering the above (#2), it would be most useful if Bolagverket would be able to monitor red flags within the register, allowing for the identification of money mules and strawmen.
Background about the seminar
Civil Society Advancing Beneficial Ownership Transparency (CSABOT) is a project that implements the Preparatory Action – Capacity Building Programmatic Development and Communication in the Context of the Fight against Money Laundering and Financial Crimes. This project is performed by Transparency International Secretariat (TI-S), together with Tax Justice Network (TJN), Transcrime – Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Transcrime – UCSC) and the Government Transparency Institute (GTI), under a contract with the European Union represented by the European Commission.
