Do you work for a business which is under an obligation under the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive to carry out due diligence checks under anti-money laundering regulations?  If so, Companies House has an early Christmas present for you...

Certain "obliged entities", for example auditors, notaries, credit reference agencies, company service providers and estate agents, have to report any discrepancies in, on the one hand, the information they hold about a beneficial holder and, on the other, information on the public record at Companies House on persons with significant control (PSCs).  This is to ensure that the PSC register is adequate, accurate and current.  A PSC is someone who owns or controls a company, and a company may have more than one PSC.  The types of discrepancy which should be reported include where a PSC is missing or a different person is listed as PSC compared with the beneficial owner information held, or there is an incorrect correspondence address.  

Companies House has announced a new online service, which should make this process easier and faster.  If there is a material difference (something more than a typo) between the information an entity holds about a company's PSCs and that which appears on the Companies House register, a report should be made.  Reporting a discrepancy is promised to take up to 10 minutes, and should hopefully result in any incorrect or misleading PSC records being spotted and rectified.