On July 20, 2021, the European Commission introduced legislative proposals to improve the EU’s anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing (AML/CFT) rules that include the establishment of the Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA), a new money laundering authority in the EU, to protect EU citizens and the EU financial system by improving the detection of suspicious transactions and close loopholes typically utilized by financial criminals.
The Commission determined that revised rules were necessary in July 2019 following a number of prominent cases of alleged money laundering that occurred in EU credit intuitions. In particular, the Commission found that improvements were needed in the areas of supervision and cooperation between Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) after discovering that most of the recent money laundering cases reported in the EU had a cross-border component that took advantage of the operational independence and autonomy that exists among FIUs. Consequently, the goal of the AMLA would be to supervise and coordinate the national supervisory authorities, create consistent tools and rules, and establish a standardized approach to AML/CFT compliance.
European Commission Press Release | European Commission Proposal