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In March, Companies House introduced the first set of changes under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act.

These new and enhanced powers represent the biggest changes to Companies House since its inception and provide a legal framework to better address modern-day challenges related to the abuse of corporate registers.

Since 1844, Companies House has primarily served an administrative function.

This shift in remit transforms Companies House from an organization that passively accepts information in good faith to one that actively scrutinizes, challenges, and removes information when necessary.

We now have the tools needed to take a much harder line against those who seek to abuse our company register and use UK companies to pursue criminal activities.

Over time, the measures we are implementing will lead to improved transparency and more accurate and trusted information on our registers.

Evidence over the past 10-15 years suggests that UK companies have been used to facilitate fraud both domestically and internationally.

For a long time, Companies House lacked the legal power to analyze or challenge the information it received or verify its accuracy.

In recent years, there has also been a spike in 'address hijacking' and identity fraud related to company incorporation, where fake companies are registered to innocent citizens' addresses or in their names without their knowledge.

With these new powers, we will be able to help victims of address fraud more quickly, and it will be easier to correct false information.

We have created an intelligence hub and invested in systems and personnel to develop our intelligence capability.

We have implemented 200 new operational processes and examination policies and hired staff for 18 new teams, 15 in our customer delivery directorate, and three in our intelligence directorate.

We are continuing to recruit over the coming months to ensure we have the resources needed to deliver these changes.

We are also increasing our use of data science and digital research to develop insights on patterns of activity and behavior from information held on the register.

We have streamlined the process for key government departments and law enforcement agencies to share reports of suspicious activity with us and made it easier and faster to share our intelligence and data with them for the purpose of crime prevention and detection.

While we were already doing some of this, our new powers allow us to be much more proactive.

Our powers will enable us to play a more central role in supporting the UK's drive to tackle economic crime and reduce criminality.

We are in the process of delivering a large and complex set of changes, which require secondary legislation and system development to execute.

These changes will be introduced in phases over the coming years.

We will be implementing identity verification so we can be sure the people setting up and managing companies are who they say they are, which will strengthen our position in the fight against economic crime.

This is a huge opportunity for us.

We have an important role to play in tackling economic crime, but we must also deliver excellent services to our customers and support the business environment in the UK.

Our job is to make it easy for people to do business and register their information with Companies House, but we have known for some time that UK companies have been misused by criminals to commit fraud, money laundering, and other forms of economic crime.

We will now work more proactively, taking unprecedented steps to crack down on fraudulent activities and prevent further abuse of the register.