News built for finance pros
CFO Brew helps finance pros navigate their roles with insights into risk management, compliance, and strategy through our newsletter, virtual events, and digital guides.
Money launderers are on notice: The European Union is gunning for them, armed with a shiny new watchdog group.
On May 30, the Council of the European Union adopted a set of new anti-money laundering rules that, among other things, established the Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA). The new authority has “direct and indirect supervisory powers over high-risk obliged entities in the financial sector,” according to a press release. “Obliged entities” mainly refers to credit and financial institutions, including the crypto sector, and certain professions such as law and accounting, all of which “play a central role as gatekeepers” in anti-money laundering regulations, according to the European Council’s website.
AMLA will have an “integrated mechanism with national supervisors” to ensure these high-risk entities comply with anti-money laundering and terrorism financing regulations, the release continued.
The agency will be based in Frankfurt and will officially begin operations in mid-2025, the Council noted.
“The new and stricter rules will strengthen our systems in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing,” Vincent Van Peteghem, Belgium’s minister of finance, said in the release. “This will ensure that fraudsters, organised crime and terrorists will have no space left for legitimising their proceeds through the financial system.”