On Jan. 18, the Council and Parliament found a provisional agreement on an anti-money laundering (ML) regulation that aims to exhaustively harmonise rules throughout the EU.
This package consists of a regulation establishing a new EU anti-ML authority (AMLA) which will have powers to impose sanctions and penalties and a regulation recasting the regulation on transfers of funds which aims to make transfers of crypto-assets more transparent and fully traceable.
Obliged entities
The provisional agreement expands the list of obliged entities to new bodies. The new rules will cover most of the crypto sector, forcing all crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) to conduct due diligence on their customers. This means that they will have to verify facts and information about their customers, as well as report suspicious activity.
Due diligence measures
According to the agreement, CASPs will need to apply customer due diligence measures when carrying out transactions amounting to € 1000 or more. It adds measures to mitigate risks in relation to transactions with self-hosted wallets.
Enhanced due diligence
The Council and Parliament also introduced specific enhanced due diligence measures for cross-border correspondent relationships for crypto-asset service providers.
The texts will now be finalised and presented to member states’ representatives in the Committee of permanent representatives and the European Parliament for approval. If approved, the Council and the Parliament will have to formally adopt the texts before they are published in the EU’s Official Journal and enter into force.
EBA issues guidance to crypto-asset service providers
On Jan. 16, the European Banking Authority (EBA) extended its Guidelines on ML risk factors to European CASPs. The Guidelines also aims to exhaustively harmonise rules throughout the EU.
CASPs can be abused for financial crime purposes, including ML. The risks of this happening can be increased, for example because of the speed of crypto-asset transfers or because some products contain features that hide the user’s identity.
The guidelines aim to help CASPs identify these risks by providing a non-exhaustive list of different factors, which may indicate the CASP’s exposure to higher or lower levels of the ML risk due to its customers, products, delivery channels and geographical locations. The Guidelines also explain how CASPs should adjust their mitigating measures, including the use of blockchain analytics tools.
The Guidelines will apply from 30 December 2024.
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