AMLA: What difference will the agency make in the EU’s fight against moneylaundering?

Given Europe’s stature as a major market for financial services, it is not much of a surprise that it is a haven for a significant chunk of the world’s flow of illicit funds—it is estimated that between €117 billion and €210 billion worth of suspicious activities and transactions flow through the European Union’s (EU) financial system each year. Such figures show that crime agencies’ efforts to clamp down on money laundering are floundering: in fact, according to the EU’s Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (EUROJUST), on average, only 2% of the assets from organized crime are confiscated by law enforcement annually, despite a 15% surge in cases.

The EU wants to turn the situation around, and in July this year, the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA), the bloc’s Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism, formally came into being, though it will not begin direct supervision until Jan. 1, 2028. The agency’s role is to coordinate the efforts of EU member states to battle money laundering by ensuring they implement EU rules properly and to improve cooperation between the 27 countries’ financial intelligence units (FIUs).

AMLA will directly supervise the EU’s highest-risk financial institutions with significant cross-border exposure and will exercise indirect supervision across both the financial and non-financial sectors. So far, AMLA has entered into memorandums of understanding with the EU’s other main supervisory bodies, the European Banking Authority (EBA), the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), as well as with the European Central Bank (ECB).