The Council and the Parliament reached a provisional agreement on creating a new European authority for countering money laundering and financing of terrorism (AMLA). AMLA will have direct and indirect supervisory powers over high-risk obliged entities in the financial sector. This agreement leaves out a decision on the location of the agency’s seat, a matter that continues to be discussed on a separate track.
Given the cross-border nature of financial crime, the new authority will boost the efficiency of the anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (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 have a supporting role with respect to non-financial sectors, and coordinate financial intelligence units in member states.
In addition to supervisory powers and in order to ensure compliance, in cases of serious, systematic or repeated breaches of directly applicable requirements, the Authority will impose pecuniary sanctions on the selected obliged entities.
The provisional agreement adds powers to AMLA to directly supervise certain types of credit and financial institutions, including crypto asset service providers, if they are considered high-risk or operate across borders.
AMLA will carry out a selection of credit and financial institutions that represent a high risk in several member states. The selected obliged entities will be supervised by joint supervisory teams led by AMLA that will among other things carry out assessments and inspections. The agreement entrusts the authority to supervise up to 40 groups and entities in the first selection process.
For non-selected obliged entities, AML/CFT supervision would remain primarily at national level.
- Targeted financial sanctions: the Authority will monitor that selected obliged entities have internal policies and procedures in place to ensure the implementation of targeted financial sanctions, asset freezes and confiscations.
- Governance: AMLA will have a general board composed of representatives of supervisors an Financial Intelligence Units from all member states, and an executive board, that would be the governing body of the AMLA, composed of the chair of the Authority and five independent full-time members.
- Whistleblowing: the provisional agreement introduces a reinforced whistle-blowing mechanism. Regarding obliged entities, AMLA will only deal with reports coming from the financial sector. It will also be able to attend reports from employees of national authorities.