# Central beneficial ownership register (UBO register)

**A central beneficial ownership register is the official register, one per Member State, that holds information on the natural persons who ultimately own or control legal entities and trusts.** Regulated firms must consult it during due diligence and, when their own findings differ from it, report the discrepancy to the register — under the AMLR, within 14 calendar days.

*Also called:* UBO register, transparency register, beneficial ownership register. In Belgium: the UBO register, kept by the Treasury within the Federal Public Service Finance.

## Why it matters for PSPs and EMIs

The register is a required source, not a sufficient one. A payment institution must check it, form its own view of who owns and controls the customer, and tell the register when the two disagree. Supervisors look for both halves: that the register was consulted, and that discrepancies were acted on.

## What the law says

- **The register.** AMLD6 (Directive (EU) 2024/1640) Art. 10: each Member State keeps a central register; the entity in charge must verify the information, act within 30 working days on a reported discrepancy, and keep a visible mention of the discrepancy until it is resolved (Art. 10(10)). Registers are interconnected through the European Central Platform (Art. 10(19)).
- **Access.** AMLD6 Art. 11 (obliged entities and authorities) and Art. 12 (persons with a legitimate interest). In its judgment of 22 November 2022 in Joined Cases C-37/20 and C-601/20 (*WM and Sovim*), the Court of Justice held invalid the rule giving the general public access in all cases.
- **Firms must consult it.** AMLR Art. 22(7): in addition to other means of verification, firms verify beneficial ownership information by consulting the central registers. Art. 23(4): obtain valid proof of registration or a recent register excerpt when a new relationship starts.
- **Firms must report discrepancies.** AMLR Art. 24(1): report without undue delay and at the latest within 14 calendar days of detection, with the information obtained and whom the firm considers the beneficial owners to be, and why. Art. 24(2): for typographical errors, transliteration differences or minor inaccuracies that do not affect who the beneficial owners are or their position, or for outdated data where the owners are known from another reliable source and there are no grounds to suspect an intention to conceal, the firm may instead ask the customer to correct the register within 14 calendar days — but not in higher-risk cases; if the customer does not, the firm reports (Art. 24(3)).
- **Entities must keep it current.** AMLR Art. 63(2): report changes within 28 calendar days and verify annually.
- **Until 10 July 2027.** Directive (EU) 2015/849, Art. 30(4), as amended by Directive (EU) 2018/843, requires Member States to have obliged entities report discrepancies. In Belgium, the Law of 18 September 2017, Art. 73 establishes the UBO register within the Treasury, and Art. 74/1 §1 requires obliged entities to report to the Treasury, electronically, any difference they find between the register and the beneficial ownership information available to them.

## How ProofVolt handles it

ProofVolt detects discrepancies between the central register and the other evidence it gathers on a case, and documents each one: what differs, how it is classified, and its AMLR Art. 24 deadline — 14 calendar days to report, or the customer-correction window where the Art. 24(2) derogation applies. ProofVolt tracks those deadlines, turns a correction window that lapses uncorrected into a report obligation, and blocks a clean approval while a beneficial-ownership discrepancy is open: an officer can proceed only with a recorded reason, and the approval then needs a second approver. Reporting to the register stays with your team. ProofVolt records that the report was made, with its reference; it does not send the report itself.

## Related

- [Beneficial owner (UBO)](/glossary/beneficial-owner/)
- [Senior managing official](/glossary/senior-managing-official/)
- [Beneficial-ownership verification in the EU](/guides/beneficial-ownership-verification-eu/)

Canonical: https://proofvolt.eu/glossary/central-beneficial-ownership-register/