Beneficial ownership law ‘aims to streamline compliance’

A newly passed law on beneficial ownership will not require businesses to submit additional information but will centralise and streamline data already collected under existing rules, Senator Lisa Cummins told the Senate, positioning the reform as key to safeguarding Barbados’ financial reputation.

In debate on Wednesday, the Senate leader of government business said the act was designed to simplify compliance for businesses while strengthening Barbados’ reputation as a transparent and trustworthy international financial centre.

“The mechanism by which we collect the information is now what is changing,” she said, explaining that beneficial ownership information is already gathered by agencies including the Central Bank of Barbados, the Financial Services Commission and other sectoral regulators.

She noted that the information is routinely required for licence applications, significant shareholdings, changes in ownership, supervisory reviews, fit and proper assessments, and enforcement and compliance activities.

“There are already domestic competent authorities. They collect this information to either share with their international partners under treaties to which Barbados is signatory,” Senator Cummins said, adding that the data also supports criminal investigations, anti-money laundering efforts, terrorist financing probes, regulatory examinations, sanctions-related matters and other law enforcement activities. The Financial Intelligence Unit plays a key investigative role in those circumstances, she said.

Senator Cummins explained that the legislation also reflects changes made to the former International Business Unit, whose responsibilities have since been divided between the Ministry of Finance’s Tax Policy Unit and a newly established Business Compliance Unit (BCOM).

BCOM will now be responsible for maintaining a central beneficial ownership register, allowing businesses to make a single submission rather than providing the same information to multiple agencies.

“That unit is now going to become what we call BCOM, and they will take responsibility for collating in a single place… all of the information with one single submission by businesses,” she said.

“That’s what the legislation actually sets out to do – to simplify and create coherence around the collection of business data for all businesses under the beneficial ownership regime.”

Senator Cummins also argued that the legislation is critical to safeguarding Barbados’ financial system and preserving the country’s standing with international partners.

“We want to make sure that Barbados cannot be used as a jurisdiction to hide dirty money,” she said.

She maintained that the law will help protect access to the international financial system by ensuring Barbados has the necessary safeguards against money laundering and terrorist financing, while easing the compliance burden on legitimate businesses through a tiered approach.

“It means that when our international partners come to Barbados. Barbados is seen as that jurisdiction that continues to modernise, upgrade, reform and transform our international financial system… but it does so in a way that is transparent.”

(SB)