The registry community is united by common goals: improving transparency, modernising digital infrastructure, and strengthening compliance. But what makes it truly powerful is how it learns together. In today’s world, trust does not stop at the border, and neither should the systems that sustain it, that’s why international collaboration is key to the future of registries.
The 2025 conference season brought together registry professionals from every corner of the globe, each sharing lessons, challenges, and ambitions for the digital future of registries. Whether hosted under the banner of IACA, EBRA, or the Corporate Registers Forum (CRF), the message was transmitted: the future of registries depends on international cooperation, shared standards, and technological interoperability.
As we look ahead to Rhode Island (IACA), Malta (EBRA), and Singapore (CRF) in 2026, the global registry community stands more connected, and more inspired, than ever.
From Shared Challenges to Shared Best Practices
Registries from across the world are facing similar pressures, adapting to digital transformation, managing the rise of AI, navigating cybersecurity threats, and implementing beneficial ownership regimes. The conversations in 2025 reflected not just what is changing, but how jurisdictions are managing that change responsibly.
This global exchange of lessons directly connects to the groundbreaking work led by UNIDROIT putting together the Guide on Best Practices for Electronic Business Registries (BPER) with help from registry leaders from all over the world. At CRF 2025 in Tunis, Kateryna Bovsunovska presented the draft Guide, developed with input from experts like Justin Hygate, Julian Lamb, John Murray, and Ieva Tarailienė, and currently open to global feedback.
Kateryna Bovsunovska, Ieva Tarailienė, John Murray, and Julian Lamb at CRF 2025
Such initiatives ensure that even as registries evolve independently, they remain connected through shared frameworks, enabling consistency, security, and confidence across borders.
The Human Side of Collaboration
Beyond policies, frameworks, and technology, the true strength of the global registry community lies in its people, those who connect across borders to share insights, challenges, and solutions. Each year, conferences like IACA, EBRA, and CRF remind us that innovation begins with conversation. It is in these moments, a discussion over coffee about a new API, a debate about beneficial ownership reform, or a shared story about what did not work, that ideas take root and collective progress begins.
Rosanne Bell and Justin Hygate were among the brilliant minds who helped shape the Corporate Registers Forum (CRF) in its early years. Rosanne Bell, former ASIC Executive Director and past CRF President, has long championed cooperation as the foundation of progress and she is one of the brilliant minds in the world of registries today.
To me international cooperation is primarily about sharing experiences and best practices to help inform and guide individual jurisdictions, and to promote international consistency and the tackling of major global registry issues. With such great differences between countries globally, such as in language, laws, technology, and governments, it’s great to collaborate to explore what we do have in common and how we can share ideas and collaborate across borders. It always amazes me how people so willingly share great information on the current local and global issues affecting registries. And of course, it’s great that registry partners, such as Foster Moore, can be part of that sharing of best practice. The conferences are always a highlight, as there is nothing better than meeting colleagues in a less formal and collaborative environment.
Justin Hygate, who at the time CRF was funded served as Group Manager of the New Zealand Companies Office, also served as Secretary of CRF, played a pivotal role in building the Forum’s international connections and advancing conversations around interoperability. He also served as Chair of the International Relations section of IACA.
Being a kiwi and growing up in Aotearoa New Zealand far away from the rest of the world, you understand the need for international connections from an early age. I am very much an externally focused person and look to what other jurisdictions are doing to ensure New Zealand can connect and trade on an equal footing. This was true of my Companies Office career, my roles in the International Association of Commercial Administrators (IACA) and the Corporate Registers Forum and the work I have done for the World Bank.
Business registers exist to facilitate business and trade, and that invariably (and increasingly) involves cross-border transactions and interoperability. Knowing what other registries do and how they operate was an incredibly valuable component of my early career and is absolutely critical to my current role.
We learn from others, adapt to our requirements, and continuously improve.
Agnese Abelite, who helped shape New Zealand’s Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) during its modernisation in 2019, undertook an international study tour at the time to learn from global best practices. More recently, she revisited that spirit of collaboration through visits to Nordic registries, including Latvia, Estonia, and Sweden, exploring new approaches to digital transformation and data governance.
In the early part of my registry career, we often hosted delegations, primarily from developing countries who visited the New Zealand Companies Office. New Zealand was widely regarded as a global leader in secured transactions regime, and these delegates were eager to learn from our experience. This gave me valuable opportunities to explain the law, the operating model, and the broader economic benefits of a centralised secured transactions framework. Such regimes strengthen a country’s credit environment by enabling creditors to make more informed lending decisions, while businesses and individuals gain easier access to credit through increased transparency and trust.
The ability to contribute to other countries’ development was incredibly meaningful to me. I felt privileged that, by simply sharing what we considered a rather simple register, I could play even a small part in supporting a nation’s economic progress. It’s one of the reasons I love this industry: a register is not just a product to me; it is an enabler of development, trust, and opportunity.
Interoperability: The Foundation of Global Trust & Collaboration
As the registry community looks to 2026 and beyond, interoperability remains the defining goal, and the greatest opportunity.
Interoperability is more than technical connectivity; it is about creating shared trust across systems, borders, and institutions. For it to succeed, corporate registries must evolve into single sources of truth (SSOTs), authoritative systems that provide accurate, consistent, and verifiable data for both national and international use.
As outlined in Foster Moore’s latest white paper, Registers as the Single Source of Truth (SSOT), this model is the key to enabling digital government at scale. It allows registries to serve as trusted data custodians, supporting other agencies, private entities, and citizens with verified, interoperable information, the foundation of transparency and trust in a digital economy.
Foster Moore’s vision, through initiatives like MetaReg™, is to help make it tangible: connecting registries around the world so that trust becomes borderless, and transparency scales across jurisdictions.
A Bright Future Ahead
The past year has proven that collaboration is not just valuable, it is vital. The registry world is united by a shared goal: building a more open, connected, and trustworthy global system. As the journey continues in Rhode Island, Malta, and Singapore next year, one thing is certain: "When registries connect, trust scales, and with it, the world of business and governance becomes stronger, safer, and more transparent."
We look forward to seeing you at next year's registry conferences.