The Central Register of Accounts has accelerated lookups from weeks and months to minutes and has become a mainstay in the fight against money laundering. At the same time, it is strictly bound by law: it shows only where a person or company has an account or a safe-deposit box, not balances and transactions. Its creation was a masterclass in cooperation between the state, banks, and academia and also brought tangible financial savings.
What the register shows and how access is protected
The register serves only to identify whether a person or company has an account at a specific institution, access to a safe-deposit box, or a securities account; it does not show balances or transactions. It includes Slovak banks and branches of foreign banks operating in Slovakia, payment service providers, and securities accounts; accounts of crypto-assets of domestic entities will gradually be added. Data are updated on a T+1 basis, the system runs around the clock, and banks send daily changes, including zero changes. For accounts abroad, the national registers of other states are used.
Access is limited to specifically designated police officers and the Financial Intelligence Unit, always stating the purpose and case number and with approvals from a superior or a prosecutor. Login is multi-step: a named account, password, and security token, with every search logged. The system is not intended for bulk lookups or analytics – it respects banking secrecy and strictly mirrors the legal authorizations. You can search for a specific person or account number and learn only where accounts exist, who is an authorized signatory or beneficial owner, including history going back at least to 2018.
How it was built and what comes next
The solution arose from close cooperation between the Ministry of Finance, the police, banks, the Slovak Banking Association, the supervisory authority, and a technical team from the Slovak University of Technology. The hardest part was aligning different requirements and meeting deadlines: after the February decree, more than 35 institutions had to be integrated within six months, practically over the course of two to three months. Agreed data structures and strict validations of data exchange helped, which improved data quality. An important lesson was having a clear business requirement and intensive communication across teams.
Beyond speed, the system also brings measurable savings: almost 2.5 million euros were saved already during development compared with the original budget, and last year more than 700,000 euros on postage and communication; with twice as many requests this year, savings are estimated at around 1.5 million, cumulatively approximately 5 million. Operating costs last year were roughly 125,000 euros. The next phase will add crypto-asset accounts and expand data quality checks, and by 2028 to 2029 the EU is preparing to interconnect national registers for cross-border searching. The register thus remains a precise, law-bound search tool that speeds up investigators’ work without intruding on privacy.
