My final comment is that many countries have explored different types of registries, including tiered access. There were lots of questions about who should have access to it. Of course, law enforcement, tax authorities, journalists, investigative NGOs, all kinds of people wanted access to it. Many countries ended up deciding it was cheapest and simplest to make the beneficial ownership registry public, even though they had started out thinking that they would not do that. Many jurisdictions have now gone public, including Germany, the Netherlands, and France. It'll be interesting to keep an eye on where that goes.
On March 21st, 2018. See this statement in context.