Company directors await address waiver

Limited company directors targeted by fraudsters are set to be able to remove their publicly viewable home address.

By the end of the summer, the directors will reportedly be allowed to get Companies House to take down their personal address from its online pages.

They will also be allowed to withhold details of their address from documents when filing with the UK’s company register, The Financial Times reported.

The new powers to protect those running incorporated businesses -- set to be unveiled by BEIS -- are due to them being “disproportionately targeted” by fraudsters.

In fact, according to research by Cifas, only about nine per cent of the UK population is registered as a company, however they make up 19% of victims of impersonation.

“An individual is more likely to be targeted based on the fact that they are a company director,” the fraud prevention group found.

“Not only are they perceived to be more likely to be credit worthy (owning assets, more established in their careers, and so on), but there may also be more openly available information about these individuals compared with the average person due to the fact that company information is published publicly.”

Cifas also said it was possible that fraudsters used the data of company directors as merely “a starting point” to obtain their further details to successfully defraud business owners.