Who May Access the Transparency Register – and Why?

The Transparency Register will trigger new obligations for many Swiss companies. They will be required to determine who their beneficial owners are, document this information, and report it to the Transparency Register. This raises an obvious question for board members, management, and shareholders, but also for the beneficial owners themselves: who may actually access this sensitive data, and for what purpose?

The answer matters. The Transparency Register is not a public register like the Commercial Register. Access to the Transparency Register is restricted by law and tied to specific purposes. At the same time, the information reported is not simply stored passively. Authorities, financial intermediaries, and other authorised parties can compare the register data against their own records. Where they identify relevant discrepancies, they are required to report them. This creates a control system that continuously reviews and progressively sharpens the quality of the reported data.

Table of Contents

• What is the purpose of the Transparency Register?
• Is the Transparency Register publicly accessible?
• Which authorities have access to the Transparency Register?
• What role do financial intermediaries and advisors play?
• How is access to the Transparency Register monitored?
• Why discrepancy reports matter for companies
• Conclusion

What is the purpose of the Transparency Register?

The Transparency Register is intended to make visible which natural persons ultimately control a legal entity. The focus is not on general disclosure to the public, but on access for those bodies that require this information to fulfil their statutory duties. The LETA is designed to ensure that the competent authorities have rapid and efficient access to accurate, complete, and up-to-date information on beneficial owners (Art. 1 LETA).

This sets the Transparency Register fundamentally apart from the Commercial Register. The Commercial Register makes certain corporate facts publicly accessible, such as the company name, registered office, purpose, capital, or authorised signatories. However, it often does not reliably reveal who actually controls a company in economic terms. Particularly in the case of chains of ownership, fiduciary arrangements, foreign holding structures, or indirect interests, the actual control relationships frequently remain unclear without additional information.

The Transparency Register is intended to close this gap. It serves in particular to:

• combat money laundering and terrorist financing more effectively,
• make complex ownership and control structures more rapidly comprehensible,
• impede sanctions evasion and the misuse of legal entities,
• provide authorities and financial intermediaries with a reliable basis for their due diligence.

For companies, this means that reporting is not merely an administrative formality. The data reported becomes the basis for regulatory and anti-money laundering reviews.

Is the Transparency Register publicly accessible?

The Transparency Register is not public. Competitors, business partners, the media, private individuals, or interested third parties have no general right of access. The legislator deliberately limited access because information about beneficial owners can contain particularly sensitive personal data.

Restricted access reflects a balancing of interests. On the one hand, the state needs reliable information about who stands behind a legal entity. On the other hand, beneficial owners have a legitimate interest in ensuring that their personal data is not publicly accessible without good reason. The Transparency Register is therefore not intended to be a general transparency platform, but a working tool for clearly defined bodies.

Access is therefore excluded in particular for:

• the general public,
• the media and private researchers,
• competitors and business partners without a statutory entitlement,
• shareholders, creditors, or contractual counterparties, unless they have a specific statutory basis for access.

The purpose of the query is always decisive. Even a body that is in principle authorised to access the register may not retrieve data arbitrarily. Access is only permissible to the extent that the information is required for the performance of the relevant statutory duty or due diligence obligation (Art. 26 and 27 LETA).

Which authorities have access to the Transparency Register?

Access for authorities is graduated according to their duties and the scope of data they may retrieve. The LETA distinguishes between bodies that have broader access to register data and those whose access is limited to current information. In practical terms, this primarily concerns whether an authority may also view data that has already been deleted, or only the information currently held in the register.

Comprehensive access is foreseen above all where authorities need to trace economic structures over longer periods. This applies in particular to law enforcement authorities, police, administrative, and criminal justice bodies at federal and cantonal level, as well as bodies active in the areas of money laundering, terrorist financing, organised crime, international administrative assistance in tax matters, or sanctions enforcement (Art. 26 LETA). For such authorities, it can be decisive to know not only the current status but also earlier register information. Only in this way can changes to ownership and control structures be traced.

Other authorities are granted access to the extent they require the information for specific administrative tasks. These include supervisory authorities in the area of money laundering, land registry offices and authorities in the real estate sector, bodies responsible for the acquisition of real estate by persons domiciled abroad, the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security, certain enforcement authorities in the area of weapons and explosives, public contracting authorities in procurement, subsidy authorities, implementing bodies for social insurance, and the Federal Statistical Office (Art. 26 LETA).

The purposes of these queries differ considerably depending on the authority:

• Law enforcement authorities can use the register to identify the economic principals behind a structure and trace asset movements through companies.
• Tax and administrative assistance authorities can assess ownership and control relationships where beneficial interests are relevant for tax purposes.
• Sanctions authorities can verify whether a company is in fact controlled by a sanctioned person.
• Real estate, social insurance, and subsidy authorities can determine who economically benefits from certain legal transactions, services, or state contributions.

What these cases share is that the query is not driven by a general interest in information, but by the need to fulfil a specific statutory duty.

What role do financial intermediaries and advisors play?

In addition to authorities, financial intermediaries within the meaning of the Anti-Money Laundering Act and certain advisors may also retrieve data from the Transparency Register online. This access is likewise not general in nature, but functionally limited. It is only permissible to the extent that the data is required to fulfil anti-money laundering due diligence obligations (Art. 27 LETA).

For banks, financial service providers, and other financial intermediaries subject to the Anti-Money Laundering Act, this is particularly relevant. They are required to identify who is the beneficial owner as part of their client relationships. The Transparency Register will become an additional source of information that can be compared against their own client data, internal records, and other inquiries.

The same applies to advisors to the extent that they are subject to the new anti-money laundering obligations. Access does not serve the purpose of viewing arbitrary company information. Rather, it enables advisors to support their own due diligence with an additional register source and to identify discrepancies.

In practice, such a comparison may concern in particular:

• the identity of the reported beneficial owner,
• the size or nature of the interest,
• indirect control relationships through interposed companies,
• discrepancies between bank records, client documentation, and the register entry.

This gives the Transparency Register a second layer of control. Not only authorities, but also private-sector actors with statutory due diligence obligations contribute to making inconsistencies visible.

How is access to the Transparency Register monitored?

Access to the Transparency Register is logged. Whenever an online query is made by an authority, a financial intermediary, or an authorised advisor, the details of that query are recorded (Art. 29 LETA). Certain queries by the supervisory body are exempt.

Logging is central to data protection. It ensures that it can subsequently be established who queried which data at what time. Access is therefore not merely technically enabled, but also made verifiable. Logging represents an important safeguard against abusive queries and strengthens confidence that sensitive personal data will not be accessed without good reason.

For companies and beneficial owners, this means that access is broad enough to enable effective regulatory and anti-money laundering controls, but is not unmonitored. The register is not a freely accessible information portal, but a protected system with defined access rights and documented queries.

Why discrepancy reports matter for companies

The real significance of the Transparency Register does not lie solely in the fact that certain bodies may retrieve data. What is decisive is that these bodies compare the register information against other data holdings. This is precisely what gives rise to the integrated control system that continuously improves the quality of reported data.

If a financial intermediary identifies a discrepancy between the information in the Transparency Register and its own records, it must report that discrepancy under certain conditions (Art. 30 LETA). A reporting obligation arises in particular where the discrepancy raises doubts about the accuracy, completeness, or currency of the information on the beneficial owner. Not every minor deviation is equally relevant. What matters is whether the difference calls into question the substance of the beneficial ownership or the control structure.

Authorities must also report discrepancies if they have doubts about the accuracy, completeness, or currency of the register information (Art. 31 LETA). This can arise from their own databases, from procedural files, from tax information, from foreign administrative assistance information, or from other regulatory inquiries. An authority is therefore not only a user of the Transparency Register; it also contributes to quality assurance.

A discrepancy report can result in a corresponding note being added to the register. The company concerned is confronted with the discrepancy and must correct, supplement, or credibly explain the information. This means that scrutiny does not begin only at a later stage in criminal or administrative proceedings. It begins as soon as register data and external information do not align.

For companies, the following situations are particularly critical:

• The reported beneficial owner does not match the information held by a bank or financial intermediary.
• An indirect chain of ownership has been simplified or incompletely recorded.
• Changes to the ownership structure were documented internally but not updated in the Transparency Register.
• The company cannot credibly demonstrate why a particular person was or was not reported as a beneficial owner.

The quality of the initial report is therefore decisive. Companies should not wait to respond until an authority or financial intermediary identifies a discrepancy. It is advisable to carry out an advance review of the ownership and control structure, to document the beneficial owners in a comprehensible manner, and to update the register on an ongoing basis whenever changes occur.

Conclusion

Access to the Transparency Register is deliberately limited. The register is not public and is not intended for general inspection by private individuals. Access is granted only to authorities, financial intermediaries, and certain advisors to the extent they require the data to perform their statutory duties or due diligence obligations.

At the same time, the Transparency Register is more than a static reporting database. Access enables authorised bodies to compare reported information against their own data holdings. Where relevant discrepancies are identified, these must be reported. This creates a control system that does not merely collect register data but continuously reviews its quality.

For companies, this means that the report on beneficial owners should be carefully prepared and documented. Those who analyse their own ownership and control relationships thoroughly reduce the risk of discrepancy reports, follow-up inquiries, fees, and further proceedings.

If you are preparing for the Transparency Register, a structured review of your own ownership and control relationships is well worthwhile. Konsento supports companies in recording beneficial owners in a comprehensible manner, preparing reporting data accurately, and updating changes in an orderly fashion going forward.