The European Banking Authority (EBA) gave its response on Thursday 10 September to the scope of the future proposal for a European regulation to combat money laundering, which the European Commission intends to present in the 1st quarter of 2021.
In its opinion, the EBA recommends that the Commission make directly applicable those provisions where “divergence of national rules and practices has had a significant, adverse impact on the prevention of the use of the EU’s financial system for money laundering and terrorist financing purposes”.
The future regulation should therefore include customer due diligence measures, control requirements for financial institutions and rules governing key risk monitoring processes.
According to the EBA, other provisions could remain in a directive, but on the condition that they are strengthened. This is in particular the case for those powers granted to national supervisory authorities for monitoring and taking the necessary measures to ensure that financial institutions comply with their obligations. It also cites the reporting obligations of financial institutions, which should include an obligation to identify and report suspicious activities and transactions.
In addition, the authority advocates a review of the scope of European legislation to ensure that the list of obliged entities is sufficiently comprehensive and within the scope of international standards. Examples of those sectors which are not currently included or whose status is unclear under the current Directive include virtual asset service providers, investment firms and investment funds.
Finally, the EBA recommends clarifying the provisions of legislation pertaining to sectoral financial services to ensure that they remain compatible with EU objectives on money laundering.
This opinion complements the EBA's response to the Commission's public consultation on its Action Plan (see EUROPE 12482/8), in which it detailed its vision of the future European supervisor (see EUROPE 12544/19).
Read the opinion: https://bit.ly/3ihghNT and the detailed report: https://bit.ly/3hm58Kl (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)