The Cayman Islands are set to break decades of secrecy by opening up to scrutiny thousands of companies and hedge funds domiciled on the Caribbean island.

The British overseas territory - keen to lose its reputation for being one of the world's most secretive financial territories - is introducing a raft of sweeping reforms that will reveal the names of previously hidden companies and the names of those who control them.

The islands' monetary authority CIMA, has sent proposals to Cayman-based hedge funds, outlining its plans to create a public database of funds domiciled on the island for the first time, subject to an on-going consultation process set to close in mid-March.

'In the 24 months subsequent to the onset of the financial crisis, the BVI Financial Services Commission, the Central Bank of Ireland, the Jersey Financial Services Commission, the Bahamas Financial Services Board and the Isle of Man Supervision Commission all updated their corporate governance codes, laws and/or regulations,' the FT reports CIMA as saying in a document.

CIMA failed to answer the FT's request for a comment.

The Cayman Islands have come under increasing pressure from EU and US legislators to get their house in order and make its notoriously shadowy corporate disclosure laws more transparent.

Back in December, accounts filed by Facebook Ireland revealed that the social media behemoth squirrelled £440m into an Irish sister company in 2011, which then pumped the money into a Cayman Islands subsidiary.

Such complex tax structures have been dubbed a "Double Irish". They usually involve royalty payments being shifted from a large corporate's international subsidiaries to pay significantly lower taxes in predominantly offshore jurisdictions.