As part of the money laundering regulations firms are required to establish ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) of companies and complete client due diligence. According to HM Land Registry figures, there are 280,021 homes registered to foreign homeowners; a combination of 2/3 owned by individuals, and 1/3 owned by overseas companies.
In the last 12 months, the number of overseas property owners has increased by 3.2% with particular increases in the North West (5.4%), the West Midlands (4.9%) and London (4.0%). Despite the introduction of the Register of Overseas Entities in 2022 designed to establish UBO and clamp down on money laundering via overseas ownership, completing Know Your Client checks on property owned by overseas entities remains challenging.
To tackle the issues a new Know Your Business (KYB) solution has been launched to enable the checking of key individuals purchasing property. Credas’ KYB Reports uses data from Companies House and internal company registry information; UBO verification; ownership structure checks; AML watchlist screening; and corporate document verification.
The reports provide ‘a clear and concise report that identifies all beneficial owners which you can then run KYC/AML checks on’ says Credas CEO Tim Barnett adding
“Our new KYB solution helps firms easily identify Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBO) and group structures in a single click. UBO identification is vital to the ongoing effort to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. Traditional business due diligence methods involve an overwhelming number of documents and filings that needed to be meticulously read through, to connect the corporate dots in order to eventually find the beneficial owners.
One Response
Insisting on a structure chart showing the ubo at the outset will save a lot of time and effort, you still have to verify but it will speed the process.