The European Commission a few days ago presented an ambitious package of legislative proposals aimed at consolidating EU rules to combat money laundering and terrorist financing (AML / CFT).
Among the main news, you have surely read about the proposal to create a new EU authority for the fight against money laundering which will be called AMLA, Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism. AMLA will be the coordination center for national authorities, aimed at ensuring that the private sector applies EU rules correctly and consistently.
The European Authority, whose establishment is foreseen (starting from 1 January 2023) by the package of measures presented on 21 July 2021:
- will coordinate and assist national FIUs in improving the effectiveness of the implementation of prescriptions, guaranteeing uniform regulatory standards and risk assessment methods.
AMLA will have supervisory and investigative powers (and the power to impose administrative and pecuniary penalties ) against “selected” obliged entities, ie credit and financial institutions or groups of credit or financial institutions. A decidedly significant step forward towards the standardization of safeguards, processes, verifications and controls in Europe that brings us closer to the extraordinary activity of the US authorities towards which a progressive alignment is desirable.
The aim is to improve the detection of suspicious transactions and activities and fill loopholes used by criminals to launder illicit proceeds or finance terrorist activities through the financial system.
The tasks of the AMLA will be:
- Support FIUs in their work to improve their analytical capacity of illicit flows and make financial intelligence a key source of information for law enforcement. His work will be based on common supervisory methodologies and on the convergence towards standard high vigilance ;
- Supervise directly some of the riskiest financial institutions operating in a large number of Member States or requiring immediate action to address imminent risks;
- Monitor and coordinate the national supervisory bodies responsible for other financial entities and coordinate the supervisory bodies of non-financial entities;
- Support cooperation between National Financial Intelligence Units ( FIUs ) and facilitate coordination and joint analysis between them, in order to better identify illicit financial flows of a cross-border nature.
The Commission’s new measures refine the current EU regulatory framework, adapting it to new and emerging challenges related to technological innovation, such as virtual currencies, the greater integration of financial flows in the single market and the global nature of terrorist organizations.
These proposals will help create a much more coherent framework to facilitate compliance for operators subject to AML / CFT rules, especially those operating cross-border.
Today’s package consists of 4 legislative proposals :
- Establishment of a New European AML Authority ;
- New AML / CFT Regulation containing directly applicable rules, also in relation to customer due diligence and beneficial ownership;
- A sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive which replaces the current Directive (EU) 2015/849 (fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, in turn amended by the fifth, Directive (EU) 2018/843), containing provisions to be transposed into national law, such as on national supervisory bodies and financial intelligence units in the Member States.
The VI Directive increases the number of crimes that fall within the definition of money laundering and provides a unified list of 22 predicate crimes that constitute money laundering, including some tax crimes , environmental crime and cybercrime offenses; the support and facilitation of money laundering will also be subject to the same criminal penalties and therefore anyone who helps money launderers will commit the crime of money laundering . Criminal liability will be extended to legal persons and corporations / partnerships in order to allow them to be punishable.
- Revision of the 2015 Fund Transfer Regulation on fund transfers for the purpose of tracking crypto-asset transfers – Regulation (EU) 2015/847.
All customer due diligence service providers will be obliged under the new amendments to guarantee full traceability of crypto-asset transfers , such as Bitcoins , and will allow to prevent and identify their possible use for money laundering / financing purposes. of terrorism. Anonymous crypto-asset portfolios will also be banned , thus fully applying EU AML / CFT rules to the crypto-asset sector.
Over the years it has been increasingly understood that the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism is a phenomenon that affects the whole world and that in order to be defeated it is necessary to put into practice mechanisms that involve several authorities and several countries.