The European financial supervision authorities (ESMA, EBA, EIOPA) have warned against the gaps in the directive (2015/486) aiming to step up the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
“Problems exist in key areas such as firms' understanding of the money laundering/terrorist financing risk to which they are exposed and the effective implementation, by firms, of customer due diligence policies and procedures”, the three authorities state in their joint report published on Monday 20 February. They also note “problems associated with the lack of timely access to intelligence that might help identify and prevent terrorist financing, and considerable differences in the way competent authorities discharge their functions”.
The three authorities therefore advise the European legislator to act to guarantee the effectiveness of the EU's defences against money laundering and terrorist financing. It is particularly important that the member states develop an approach based on risk analysis, they add. In particular, they call on the competent authorities to act to ensure that financial entities are duly informed of the expectations relating to the work to tackle this phenomenon and to ensure more consistent data collection. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)