Kyckr featured in new report on interoperable beneficial ownership data

A new report on connecting beneficial ownership data across borders, published today by Open Ownership, draws on the work of a task force that included Kyckr CEO Steve Lamb. 

Connecting ownership data: Practical pathways to tackle cross-border financial crime is the final report of the Expert Taskforce on Interoperable Beneficial Ownership Data, convened by Open Ownership, the Global Coalition to Fight Financial Crime, and LSEG Risk Intelligence. For over a year, the taskforce brought together more than 50 private-sector innovators, public authorities, and international organisations to find practical ways to make beneficial ownership data usable across jurisdictions. 

More than 100 countries now run beneficial ownership registers. The report finds that the data they hold remains difficult to connect, compare, and trust across borders, limiting its use by the financial intelligence units, regulators, investigators, and financial institutions that rely on it. 

Lamb's contribution to the report sets out the technical barriers in detail: 

"The biggest challenges to achieving interoperable BO data lie in the fragmentation and inconsistency of registry systems across jurisdictions. These include major disparities in technical access (from modern REST APIs to PDF-only registries), the absence of standardised identifiers, and highly variable data quality, especially in free-text shareholder and BO declarations. Semantic inconsistencies, such as different definitions of ownership, control, and even basic company status fields, further complicate cross-border data mapping. Existing APIs and bulk data are often poorly documented, unreliable, or legally restricted, creating high integration costs and operational delays. Finally, limited access to BO registers following legal changes, combined with weak verification in many jurisdictions, forces reliance on indirect ownership inference and undermines confidence in the source data." 

The report reaches conclusions that align with this assessment. It argues that interoperability cannot compensate for weak source data, that domestic registers are the building blocks of any international solution, and that machine-readable access through well-documented APIs and bulk data is essential. Its recommendations include defining a minimum set of high-value beneficial ownership fields, adopting common identifiers, and building durable governance and funding models. 

Writing on LinkedIn as the report launched, Lamb said he had no doubt the recommendations would have a lasting effect across financial crime work, including for Kyckr's obliged-entity users. He framed what comes next as a political choice rather than a technical one: with the regulatory window open in the EU, whether authorities choose connection over fragmentation, or let corporate transparency keep retreating. 

Read the full report:Open Ownership, Connecting ownership data (2026)