Revelations of illicit activities at banks including HSBC and Standard Chartered, detailed in the leaked FinCEN files, “could not have come at a worse time for the UK and the economy”.

Tax and advisory firm Blick Rothenberg warned that while the UK’s plans to reform the register of company information will go some way towards strengthening controls, a further tightening of the regulatory environment must follow.

Files sent to FinCEN (the US Financial Crimes Investigation Network) show that over 3000...