Author: Wilma Rix

Government adopts plan to digitise UK listed company shareholdings in stages

Final recommendations from the UK’s Digitisation Taskforce envisage a staged approach for modernising the shareholding system. As a first step, paper share certificates will be abolished, but these holdings will continue to be recorded on a separate part of the register outside CREST. The ultimate aim is to move all UK listed company shareholdings into CREST, using intermediaries where necessary. Intermediated holding systems will need to be improved first, however, to make sure that investor rights are protected. The whole project will therefore take a few years to complete.