The impact of the new EU agency to improve the coordination and success of anti-money laundering (AML) activities will be largely indirect, depending on its influence over European national governments continuing to supervise most EU financial services firms. Therefore, its collaboration with national regulators and authorities will be crucial to its success.

While the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA), which received provisional approval in December, will directly regulate organizations it identifies as “high risk,” including those operating across multiple borders and some crypto-asset providers, and be able to impose financial sanctions, the numbers involved are relatively small.

Other actions announced at the same time as AMLA are likely to prove as, or more, important than the headline-grabbing creation of a new authority, including new AML regulations to harmonize rules across the European Union, a new AML directive to update rules over national supervisors and financial intelligence units, and extending rules governing the traceability of cypto-asset transactions.

These will not appear overnight, but compliance managers should monitor developments.