Financial Transparency Coalition

In this terrific blog the Economist’s Matthew Valencia looks into the contentious issue of transparency and trusts. What exactly are trusts, why do they exist (100 points if you knew they were developed in the 12th century for Knights leaving for the Crusades) and should they be part of the international push for public registries of beneficial ownership. What do you think?

Nuance can be a challenge for Financial Transparency Coalition issues. To the average citizen or politician, the relationship between banking laws in developed countries and poverty in developing countries is not self-evident. On its face, it’s not obvious that public registries in the United Kingdom have anything to do with corruption in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yet there are compelling connections between these issues and strong causal relationships between them. Our challenge is to explain why. At the risk of sounding too self-congratulatory, I must say the group of organizations who work on these issues does a phenomenal...

Financial Transparency Coalition Manager, Porter McConnell was quoted in Patrick Wintor's article "Register revealing firms' true owners will be open to public, says Cameron" appearing on the Guardian's website. In this article, Porter is quoted as saying "David Cameron has made a brave and far sighted decision with the introduction of this vital transparency measure. That the UK has become the first country to commit to introducing a public register to disclose the beneficial owner of companies is a watershed moment. "The UK is helping deprive corrupt politicians and criminals of the use of anonymous companies to hide their real identities....

ONE has launched a fake website (www.Stash-the-Cash.com) and Twitter account (@stash_the_cash) to raise awareness of how easy it is create an opaque company.