Over this past weekend Bermuda signed an agreement with the UK‎ to extend our programme of sharing beneficial ownership information from Bermuda's central register. Bermuda already passes this information to HMRC within 24 hours but will now also open our register to the UK National Crime Agency (NCA), reflecting Bermuda’s long-held commitment to deterring money-laundering and financial crime from our shores. 

The NCA has always had access to Bermuda’s central register via its long-standing criminal cooperation arrangement, but this involved certain time-consuming procedures. The new agreement notes that the NCA can now directly approach the Bermuda central register authorities, who maintain the register on behalf of the Minister of Finance, and includes expressed reference to our leading status as the only British Overseas Territory to have a continually updated central register already in place.