In the European Union, all countries set up public UBO registries. A few were challenged on privacy grounds, and in November last year the Netherlands and Belgi

In the European Union, all countries set up public UBO registries. A few were challenged on privacy grounds, and in November last year the Netherlands and Belgium and probably a few others closed off public access. Now only government departments and banks are able to access those registries. That's very inconvenient, for instance, for non-bank lenders, who still have a regulatory obligation to ascertain the UBOs of who they lend to.