The Council and Parliament found a provisional agreement on parts of the anti-money laundering package that aims to protect EU citizens and the EU's financial system against money laundering and terrorist financing.
This agreement is part and parcel of the EU’s new anti-money laundering system. It will improve the way national systems against money laundering and terrorist financing are organised and work together. This will ensure that fraudsters, organised crime and terrorists will have no space left for legitimising their proceeds through the financial system.
Vincent Van Peteghem Belgian Minister of Finance
With the new package, all rules applying to the private sector will be transferred to a new regulation, while the directive will deal with the organisation of institutional AML/CFT systems at national level in the member states.
The provisional agreement on an anti-money laundering regulation will, for the first time, exhaustively harmonise rules throughout the EU, closing possible loopholes used by criminals to launder illicit proceeds or finance terrorist activities through the financial system.
The agreement on the directive will improve the organisation of national anti-money laundering systems.
Anti-money laundering regulation
Obliged entities
Obliged entities, such as financial institutions, banks, real estate agencies, asset management services, casinos, merchants – play a central role as gatekeepers in the anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CTF) framework as they have a privileged position to detect suspicious activities.
The provisional agreement expands the list of obliged entities to new bodies. The new rules will cover most of the crypto sector, forcing all crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) to conduct due diligence on their customers. This means that they will have to verify facts and information about their customers, as well as report suspicious activity.
According to the agreement, CASPs will need to apply customer due diligence measures when carrying out transactions amounting to €1000 or more. It adds measures to mitigate risks in relation to transactions with self-hosted wallets.
Other sectors concerned by customer due diligence and reporting obligations will be traders of luxury goods such as precious metals, precious stones, jewellers, horologists and goldsmiths. Traders of luxury cars, airplanes and yachts as well as cultural goods (like artworks) will also become obliged entities.
The provisional agreement recognises that the football sector represents a high risk and expands the list of obliged entities to professional football clubs and agents. However, as the sector and its risk is subject to wide variations, member states will have the flexibility to remove them from the list if they represent a low risk. The rules after a longer transition period, kicking in 5 years after entry into force, as opposed to 3 years for the other obliged entities....
more at Council
© Council of the European Union
Key
Hover over the blue highlighted
text to view the acronym meaning
Hover
over these icons for more information
Comments:
No Comments for this Article