No Accounting for Taste ep210: Tech security at Companies House and HMRC

Tom Herbert opens the podcast with two tech stories from Companies House and HMRC. First, he unpacks a security flaw at Companies House that left confidential details linked to more than five million companies exposed, explaining what happened, how Companies House responded and how serious the breach was. He then turns to HMRC’s decision to reintroduce multi-factor authentication for agents from June, following a series of cyberattacks on agent accounts, looking at why the measure was introduced and later withdrawn, why it is now returning, and the general reaction. Richard Hattersley then tackles one of the biggest questions in the profession’s M&A boom: what is the endgame for private equity-backed firms? He explores the possible exit routes, from sales to larger private equity houses and further consolidation, to initial public offerings, outside buyers such as banks or tech vendors, or even a wave of management buyouts if private equity interest collapses. The team weighs up each one and how realistic it may be. Matthew Ord closes the episode with news that the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has set out plans for what it calls a major evolution of its audit supervisory model, following the scrapping of the audit reform bill in January. He examines what is being proposed, when changes could take effect, and whether this latest attempt at reform has a genuine chance of improving audit oversight. The team shares their views on whether it will lead to meaningful change.

You can listen to No Accounting for Taste ep210: Tech security at Companies House and HMRC online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

No Accounting for Taste ep210: Tech security at Companies House and HMRC is an episode from AccountingWEB by AccountingWEBUK.

This episode is 00:30:40 long.

This episode was published on Mar 26, 2026.

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