The European Parliament has adopted a package of laws to strengthen the EU's anti-money laundering combating money laundering and terrorist financing.
The new laws ensure that people with a legitimate interest, including journalists, media professionals, civil society organisations, competent authorities and supervisory authorities, will have immediate, unfiltered, direct and free access to beneficial ownership information held in national registers and interconnected at EU level. In addition to the current information, the registers will also include data from at least five years back.
The laws also give financial intelligence units (FIUs) more powers to analyze and detect cases of money laundering and terrorist financing, and to stop suspicious transactions.
Extensive due diligence
The new laws include measures for enhanced due diligence and customer identity checks, after which the so-called obliged entities (e.g. banks, asset and crypto-asset managers or real and virtual property agents) must report suspicious activities to the FIU and other competent authorities. From 2029, top-level professional football clubs involved in high-value financial transactions with investors or sponsors, including advertisers and the transfer of players, will also have to verify the identity of their customers, monitor transactions and report any suspicious transaction of FIU.
The legislation also contains provisions for greater vigilance in relation to the ultra-wealthy (total wealth worth at least EUR 50,000,000, excluding their main residence), a pan-European limit of EUR 10,000 on cash payments, except between private individuals in a non-professional context, and measures to ensure compliance with targeted financial sanctions and avoid circumvention of sanctions.
Central Monitoring Authority
To oversee the new anti-money laundering rules, a new authority will be created in Frankfurt — The Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Authority (AMLA). OBIP will be tasked with directly supervising the riskiest financial entities, intervening in case of failure to perform supervisory functions, acting as a central unit for supervisory authorities and mediating disputes between them. OBIP will also supervise the application of targeted financial sanctions.
The Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (AML/CFT) package consists of the sixth Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Directive (adopted by xx votes for, against and abstained), the EU Single Legislation Regulation (adopted by xx votes for, xx against and abstained) and the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AML) (adopted by xx votes “, xx “against“ and xx “abstained).
The laws still need to be formally adopted by the Council before being published in the EU's Official Journal. By passing the law, Parliament responds to citizens' demands set out in the conclusions of the Conference on the Future of Europe, in particular proposal 16, paragraphs 1 and 2 on the prevention of tax evasion and cooperation in the field of corporate taxation.