The European Council has today approved a package of new anti-money laundering (AML) rules aimed at protecting EU citizens and the EU's financial system from the threats of money laundering and terrorism financing.
"The new and stricter rules will bolster our systems in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. A new agency based in Frankfurt will oversee the work of actors involved. This will ensure that fraudsters, organized crime, and terrorists have no room to legitimize their proceeds through the financial system," stated Vincent Van Peteghem, Belgian Minister of Finance.
With this new package, all rules applying to the private sector will be consolidated into a new directly applicable regulation, while a directive will address the organization of national competent authorities fighting against money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT).
The regulation comprehensively harmonizes anti-money laundering rules for the first time across the EU, closing loopholes for fraudsters.
It extends anti-money laundering rules to new obliged entities, such as most of the crypto-sector, traders of luxury goods, football clubs, and agents. The regulation also imposes tighter due diligence requirements, regulates beneficial ownership, and sets a €10,000 limit on cash payments, among other measures.
The directive will improve the organization of national anti-money laundering systems by setting out clear rules on how financial intelligence units (FIUs) and supervisors work together.
The package establishes a new European Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA) with direct and indirect supervisory powers over high-risk obliged entities in the financial sector.
Given the cross-border nature of financial crime, the new authority will enhance the efficiency of the AML/CFT framework by creating an integrated mechanism with national supervisors to ensure obliged entities comply with AML/CFT-related obligations in the financial sector. AMLA will also play a supporting role with respect to the non-financial sector and coordinate and support FIUs.
In addition to supervisory powers, and to ensure compliance, the Authority will impose pecuniary sanctions on selected obliged entities in cases of serious, systematic, or repeated breaches of directly applicable requirements.
The new AML directive also mandates EU member states to make information from centralized bank account registers – containing data on who has which bank account and where – available through a single access point. A separate directive has been adopted to ensure that national law enforcement authorities have access to these registers via the single access point. This directive also includes the harmonization of bank statement formats, facilitating the fight against criminal offenses and efforts to trace and confiscate the proceeds of crime.
These are the final steps of the adoption procedure. The texts will now be published in the EU’s Official Journal and will enter into force.
The AML regulation will apply three years after entry into force. Member states will have two or three years to transpose different parts of the AML directive.
AMLA will be based in Frankfurt and will commence operations in mid-2025.
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