The European Union said it is stepping up the fight against illegal cash by enhancing monitoring of money laundering and terrorist financing threats at the EU level. EU ambassadors on 19 December 2018 agreed to give the European Banking Authority (EBA) more power over anti-money-laundering (AML) supervision for financial institutions.
“Money laundering and the financing of terrorism are major security concerns. The EU has a solid legal framework to clamp down on illegal cash flows, but further efforts are needed to make sure that rules are implemented and monitored in a consistent way across the EU,” Hartwig Löger, minister for finance of Austria, which currently holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union, said in a statement. “The European Banking Authority has a crucial role to play in that regard.”
