Insolvency practitioners, including insolvency administrators, often face a debtor who:
• has moved money across borders,
• uses multiple bank accounts (often in different jurisdictions),
• or hides behind corporate veils or trusts.

Without fast and reliable access to registers, time is lost, assets can be dissipated, and recovery rates for creditors collapse.

In Austria today, because of bank secrecy and access limitations, an insolvency practitioner might only learn of accounts through:
• disclosure obligations of the debtor (who may be uncooperative),
• tips from creditors,
• or lengthy court processes.

This creates blind spots that debtors can exploit.

The EU drive to reform cross-border insolvency law aims to decrease complexity and enhance asset recovery. Many years of negotiations between the member states have borne fruit. If the triologue between the EU Parliament, the Commission and the Council are successful, the directive could be formally adopted as early as the end of 2025, with implementation beginning in early 2026.

Specifically, insolvency practitioners and courts will receive better access to bank account registers and beneficial owner databases to trace assets across borders.

1. Immediate discovery of hidden accounts
• With access to Kontenregister (Austria) and equivalent registers abroad via EU interconnection (BARIS), an insolvency practitioner could ask: Does this debtor have accounts in other Member States?
• Instead of months of guessing, the IP gets a quick list of account identifiers, banks, and locations.
• This avoids reliance on voluntary disclosures or cross-border letters rogatory.

2. Preservation of value
• Insolvency is a race against time — funds can be dissipated or assets transferred.
• If an insolvency practitioner can quickly identify an account in, say, Spain, they can immediately ask the Austrian court to issue a preservation order or coordinate with Spanish authorities.
• This prevents “last-minute drains” that otherwise deplete the estate.

3. Tracing flows through beneficial ownership
• Beneficial ownership registers reveal if the debtor controls, or, ultimately, owns, a company, trust, or foundation that holds assets.
• In Austria (WiEReG), this is already required, but access is restricted. With harmonisation, insolvency practitioners across Europe could spot indirect holdings (e.g. the debtor is the UBO of a Maltese company that owns real estate in Vienna).
• This helps pierce corporate veils and recover hidden wealth.

4. Level playing field across Member States
• Today, creditors and insolvency practitioners in Austria may be disadvantaged compared to those in countries where practitioners already have direct access to such registers.
• Harmonised access means all creditors across the EU benefit equally from fast, secure asset tracing.

5. Efficiency & reduced costs
• Without access, insolvency practitioners may have to hire forensic accountants, file multiple requests, and go through lengthy MLA (mutual legal assistance) processes.
• Register access slashes the time and cost of asset searches, freeing resources for distribution to creditors.

6. Deterrence of concealment
• If directors and debtors know that insolvency practitioners can instantly access register data across the EU, there is less incentive to shift funds abroad or hide behind strawmen.
• This strengthens compliance and corporate discipline.

Concrete Example
Imagine an Austrian company goes bankrupt, and its director has quietly transferred cash to a personal account in Slovakia, and registered ownership of a Cypriot holding company.
      • Today: The Austrian insolvency administrator would struggle to prove existence of the Slovak account unless the debtor admits it. Cross-border legal assistance takes months, often too late. Beneficial ownership of the Cypriot entity is opaque.
      • Under the Directive:
. The IP queries the Kontenregister interconnection → gets a hit on the Slovak account.
. The IP queries BORIS → learns the director is UBO of a Cypriot company.
. With that knowledge, the Austrian court can order preservation of the Slovak account and pursue recovery of the Cypriot assets.
This is the core benefit: turning unknowns into actionable intelligence — quickly, lawfully, and across borders.

Limitations to Keep in Mind:
• Data quality: UBO registers can be incomplete or falsified; enforcement of accurate filing is uneven across Member States.
• Scope: Register data usually shows existence of accounts, not balances or transactions. Getting deeper information still requires judicial approval.
• Timing: Implementation may be slow; Austria will need to amend its Kontenregister law (KontRegG) to extend access rights to insolvency practitioners.

From an asset tracing perspective, the harmonised EU access regime could dramatically improve the speed, reliability, and reach of insolvency investigations. For Austria, it would mean shifting from a secrecy-heavy, court-permissioned system to a proactive, interconnected toolset that closes loopholes debtors exploit today.