The first public registry is in the U.K. I think the results have been quite positive, but it hasn't been a long enough period to really measure them.
I think one of the ways you can see the differences across countries is through the evaluations conducted by the Financial Action Task Force. Generally, those evaluations find that countries that collect beneficial ownership in a centralized registry perform much better in terms of fighting money laundering and terrorist financing than countries that rely upon financial institutions and other professions to collect that information on their behalf.
This is really a decision by government to delegate a responsibility to other professions and to put it in their hands. It's a burden for those professions, such as financial institutions and others. In some cases, it's one that they really fail to fulfill completely, e.g., real estate agents, or that they struggle to fulfill, e.g., financial institutions. I think that one of the best places to look is through the Financial Action Task Force's evaluations.