So far, more than 140,000 registered entities have recorded the information on their beneficial owners electronically in the Central Records of Beneficial Owners. At the moment, more than 85 per cent of registered entities, the Law on the Central Records of Beneficial Owners applies to, have fulfilled their legal obligation.
The highest percentage of those which have fulfilled this obligation are endowments (94%), joint-stock companies (93%), limited liability companies (88.50%) and institutions (83.50%).
The information on beneficial owners has been recorded so far in the lowest percentage by representative offices of foreign legal entities (30%), representative offices of foreign endowments (50%), representative offices of foreign associations (54%) and open joint-stock companies (58%).
Please be reminded that information on beneficial owners must be recorded by newly established entities, registered entities that change their ownership structure or members of their bodies, or register some other change based on which the requirements for acquiring the capacity of the beneficial owner are met.
The Central Records of Beneficial Owners is kept in electronic form and obliged entities can access it via the Agency’s website.
Simultaneously with the recording, the Agency publishes the information on its website (portal), within the Central Records of Beneficial Owners. A registered entity is required to keep the relevant, accurate and up-to-date data and documents based on which its beneficial owner was determined, for a period of ten years from the date the information on the beneficial owner was recorded in the Central Records of Beneficial Owners, to be able to make it available, i.e. provide it to the competent state authorities and the National Bank of Serbia, upon request.
The Agency is obliged to enable the electronic exchange of information with state bodies and the National Bank of Serbia that exercise supervision and control over the recording of beneficial owners.
The final amendments to the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing of 2017 were made at the end of 2019, introducing the international standards set by the Directive (EU) 2018/843 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 (the so-called Fifth AML Directive), in order to improve the existing system of detecting and preventing money laundering and terrorist financing.