On November 5^th The Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) of the EU held a video-conference meeting that concluded with the endorsement of the Commission’s Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Action Plan, together with the creation of a single EU rulebook and pan-European AML supervisor. The supervisor will have a wide range of monitoring powers over a number of high-risk obliged entities (chosen on the basis of specific risk criteria), with the authority to acquire control over supervision from a supervisor in an EU Member state in cases the national supervisor is unable to enforce compliance or cannot ensure adequate supervision.

At present, high-risk obliged entities include:

credit institutions
bureaux de exchange
payment institutions
E-money institutions and virtual asset service providers covered by FATF recommendations.

ECOFIN’s move follows the most recent attempts in the European Union to harmonise rules and EU-level supervision.

SOURCE: STEP NEWS