Interesting release from the ASIC today, announcing that our already opaque corporate registry will be even less open. Various director information will now be withheld from searches done through ASIC Connect. Forcing everyone to now search via a more expensive data broker to get full access to company data.
This will make it both harder and more expensive for SME business to undertake searches and know who they are dealing with.
In my opinion, ASIC should be going in the other direction, providing free access to all of their registers to improve transparency. Properly linking Director IDs to the ASIC register and rolling out a beneficial interest register should (both with free open access) be high on their to-do list.
ASIC updates information available through purchased extracts | ASIC