News & Insights

With the approval of the Dutch Senate, the law for registration of Ultimate Beneficiary Owners (UBOs) came into effect on 23 June 2020. Under the law, a UBO is defined as a person who controls at least a 25% stake in a company and whose registration is a requirement for financial service providers under the anti-money laundering directive (AMLD). The approval of the law means that it is now possible to obtain UBO information from a single trusted source: the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (Kamer van Koophandel).

The UBO register is being maintained by the Chamber of Commerce, which makes a UBO check directly accessible for any party. The register has been put in place to help companies fulfil their obligation to obtain details of the UBOs of a new client during onboarding, before providing them with specific services such as bank accounts.

The register means that UBOs can now be identified without it being necessary to use a third-party data aggregator or conduct a ‘best effort’ online search in order to check whether a UBO really is connected to a company. This should result in faster onboarding and a more accurate risk profile of the onboarded organisation.

Overall, the UBO register can support your organisation’s know your customer (KYC) procedures by enabling quick and compliant onboarding of B2B customers. Go to our onboarding page for more information about how we help our clients to optimise this process.