Senior officials from Companies House shared changes to corporate transparency requirements under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA), which creates new obligations for the accountancy profession.
Mark Buckley, senior implementation lead at Companies House, said the changes introduced by the ECCTA were long overdue to ensure the accuracy and reliability of corporate information given there are an estimated six to eight billion searches each year.
“The Act gives Companies House the power to play a more significant role in hopefully tackling economic crime and supporting economic growth,” Buckley told conference delegates.
New regulatory framework
The first wave of ECCTA reforms came into effect in March 2024, with the Registrar of Companies granted four statutory objectives. These include: ensuring proper delivery requirements are met; maintaining accurate register information; preventing false or misleading impressions; and preventing unlawful activities.
From March 2024 to February 2025, Companies House removed 73,000 registered office addresses, more than 100,000 officer and PSC addresses, redacted nearly 50,000 incorporation documents and removed 10,000 documents from the register, including 800 false mortgage satisfaction filings. These actions would previously have required court orders.
“We prevented over 7,000 suspicious filings and, for the first time ever, refused to register over 1,200 corporations,” Buckley said.
Authorised corporate service providers (ACSPs)
The introduction of authorised corporate service providers (ACSPs) on 18 March 2025 drove strong industry engagement, with more than 3,000 applications.
The registration process, costing a one-off fee of £55, requires firms to demonstrate AML supervision and undergo identity verification. ACSPs will be mandatory from spring/summer 2026, with anyone filing information on the register required to identify themselves directly or through an authorised provider.
“For the first time, the registrar will know who the ACSP is,” Buckley said. “They are AML supervised, they’ve undergone an application with us, and if we see anything suspicious or fraudulent, we’ll be able to work with that ACSP to remedy those issues.”
Mismatched AML supervision numbers, applications from ineligible organisations and duplicate applications have driven up ACSP regime rejection rates.
Identity verification
Alongside the ACSP implementation is the rollout of mandatory identity verification (IDV), with some 7.4 million existing officers requiring verification by the end of 2026.
The voluntary IDV period that began in April 2025 allows people to verify their identity either through gov.uk’s One Login system or via an ACSP. Early figures show more than 11,000 verifications through One Login and 742 via ACSPs, though Buckley said many ACSPs are testing their systems before full deployment.
The decision whether to offer IDV services “is purely a business decision”, Buckley said. “If you don’t want to do it, don’t—it’s not a mandatory requirement.”
“Check your clients’ information on the register is accurate, particularly dates of birth because if those don’t match with identity verification information, that will hold up the confirmation statement for all directors.”
IDV requirements are separate from existing AML customer due diligence obligations. “Our identity verification is a similar but different standard, and it’s a homogenised standard,” Buckley said. “It is the same standard for every applicant, regardless of the risk to you in terms of the MLR checks.”
Mandatory software-filling
Carl Palfrey, lead business analyst at Companies House, outlined changes to accounts filing requirements. The shift to mandatory software-only filing to be announced this summer ends paper submissions and restrictive templates.
Small companies that don’t qualify as micro entities must now submit Directors’ Reports, while micro entities must include profit and loss accounts. Abridged accounts have been removed and audit exemption statements enhanced.
“Everything we’re doing is to try and increase the quality of the data on the register,” Palfrey said. “When people are searching the data, they can have some confidence in the information that’s there.”
Sessions from the AML Conference 2025 are available to purchase on demand here.
