Photo: Valdis Dombrovskis / Twitter
Valdis Dombrovskis promised that the EU will take up cryptocurrencies
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The department will coordinate the efforts of the national authorities of the EU countries in the field of combating money laundering, and take on the support of risky international financial transactions.
The EU authorities have decided to create a new body to combat money laundering – AMLA (EU Anti Money Laundering Authority). Valdis Dombrovskis, Executive Vice President of the European Commission, said at a press conference in Brussels. Ukrinform.
“We propose to create a new EU anti-money laundering body – AMLA. It should strengthen oversight of the efforts of all EU member states to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. AMLA will not replace national authorities, but will coordinate their activities to ensure correct and effective application of EU rules in each country. AMLA will be directly involved in supporting only certain particularly risky financial institutions operating in many EU countries, or, if necessary, immediate action to prevent threats, “said Dombrovskis.
He noted that despite the efforts of the EU and the international community, money laundering remains a big problem. Evidence of this is the recent high-profile scandals that affected certain banks in Europe in 2019. While the EU’s anti-money laundering legislation is now one of the toughest in the world, it has weaknesses that need to be addressed.
“We need to achieve better coordination among EU countries in tackling cross-border financial crime. Finally, the whole chain is as strong as its weakest link, so criminals quickly exploit any weaknesses they can find,” said the executive vice President of the European Commission.
He stressed that the creation of the AMLA is one of the steps in this direction. The second step is the creation of a common package of instructions that are designed to strengthen and coordinate the commitments of all EU member states in the fight against money laundering.
Finally, the third step – setting a common ceiling for all EU countries up to € 10,000 on cash transfers – European governments can set a lower “threshold” for cash transactions, but not exceed the pan-European limit.
Dombrovskis separately stressed that the entire EU anti-money laundering system urgently needs technological improvement, which is especially obvious given the rapid development of cryptocurrencies, which are increasingly used for money laundering and other criminal activities.
“From now on, we will place cryptocurrency assets fully under EU rules. All transfers involving cryptocurrencies must be accompanied by details as to who sends them and who receives them, as it happens with respect to real money transfers,” said a representative of the European Commission.
As a reminder, in September 2020 there was published a report on the world’s largest banksthat laundered money in Malaysia, Venezuela, Russia and Ukraine. The investigation includes banks JPMorgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon.
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