All organisations supervised under the legislation — including banks, financial institutions and credit reference agencies — must now tell Companies House if material differences exist between information they hold about their PSC customers and what’s listed on the Companies House PSC register.

 The anti-money laundering rules seek to prevent the use of the financial system for money laundering and terrorist financing.

Obliged entities are required to carry out customer due diligence under the regulations.

“Organisations subject to anti-money laundering regulations are already familiar with the steps they need to take to achieve compliance. However, these entities must now report any fundamental differences between beneficial ownership information held by a client and the details on the Companies House PSC register,” said Lee Robins, head of PSC compliance at Companies House.

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The latest directive encouraged use of electronic identity verification where available.

Martin Cheek, managing director of electronic verification provider SmartSearch, added: “There’s increased focus on the scourge of money laundering and terrorist financing and electronic verification is an easy way to help prevent this. Organisations using our service for their identity checks can be sure they are compliant at all times.”