Where to Keep the UBO Register: Location and Access

The Decision places the register-keeping duty on the legal person, which in practice means the registers must be maintained at the company's registered office or principal place of business — the address where the Registrar, a bank reviewer or an auditor would ask to see them. 'With the company' means under the company's control: the directors or managers can produce the current registers, the analysis and the filing receipts on demand, without a scavenger hunt across advisers. For a company with no physical office (flexi-desk, virtual office), the registered address still anchors the duty — designate where the records actually live (the company secretary's office, the adviser's files under a clear engagement, a controlled digital repository) and make sure the directors know. The test: if the Registrar asked tomorrow, who would produce the file, and how quickly?

Copies and working files may live elsewhere — and usually do. Registered agents (offshore companies) typically maintain the statutory records: fine, provided the company holds its own copy and can verify the agent's file. Advisers (lawyers, corporate service providers) may keep the working papers: fine, under a clear engagement that specifies what is held, for how long, and what happens on termination. Cloud storage: electronic registers are practical and common — keep them in a controlled repository with access logs, backups and version history (the version history is the update history, which proves the 15-day rule). The non-delegable core: whatever the arrangements, the company must be able to produce the current registers on demand and must ensure updates happen within 15 days — an agent who updates quarterly, or an adviser who holds last year's version, leaves the company in violation. Review the custody arrangements annually: who holds what, is it current, and what happens if the relationship ends?

The registers exist to be produced: to the Registrar on request or inspection, to banks during account reviews, to auditors, to buyers in diligence. The production standard is the ten-minute file — registers, chart, analysis, evidence, receipts, history — complete, dated, consistent. Do not produce selectively: handing over the register while withholding the analysis that contradicts it is worse than producing both; reviewers find the contradiction anyway. Confidentiality: the Decision protects register information (no disclosure without the beneficial owner's written approval) — production to the Registrar and competent authorities is the statutory purpose, not a breach; production to commercial counterparties should be under appropriate confidentiality. Refusing production to the Registrar is itself an enforcement trigger — the registers are kept precisely so they can be shown. A company that can produce a complete file in days is a company that has nothing to hide and everything to show.

Location is only half the question; the other half is who holds the keys. The rule: the register lives where the company can produce it within days, and only authorised people can view or amend it. Name the custodian (the company secretary, the compliance officer, the external advisor) and document the appointment. Access tiers: read access for directors and auditors; edit access for the custodian alone, with every change logged and dated. The advisor-held register: common for SMEs, but the company remains responsible — the engagement letter should spell out the advisor's duties, the handover on termination, and the company's right to inspect at any time. Test it: once a year, ask someone unfamiliar to retrieve the register and the last three changes' evidence. If they cannot, your location-and-access setup exists on paper only.

The Decision requires three registers, and they are not interchangeable. The Real Beneficiary (UBO) Register records each beneficial owner. The Partners or Shareholders Register records the legal owners — including Nominal Board Members, a category the 2023 Decision names expressly, whose details must sit in this register. The Nominee Board Member disclosures feed both. For each beneficial owner the register must contain: full name, nationality, date and place of birth; residence or the address for notices under the Decision; passport or ID number, issuing state, and issue and expiry dates; the grounds on which the person became a beneficial owner and the date that capacity began; and the date the person ceased to be one. The register is created within 60 days of the Decision's implementation or of the legal person's coming into existence, and updated within 15 days of the company being informed of any change. Where a person is entered without supplying the details personally, the company must inform them of the inclusion within 15 days; anyone with a capacity or interest may ask the Registrar to correct an entry made without sufficient reason.