EU members reportedly plan for AML watchdog to oversee crypto firms by 2024

Published at: Feb. 23, 2022

The European Commission, in coordination with other authorities, reportedly plans to have its financial watchdog group potentially oversee illicit transactions at crypto firms.

According to a Tuesday Bloomberg report, a group of European Union member nations led by Germany and including The Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Italy, and Luxembourg plan to include crypto firms under the purview of the anti-money laundering-focused group — purportedly the European Commission’s Anti-Money Laundering Authority first proposed in July 2021. The group will reportedly begin operating in 2024 and be “fully functional” by 2026.

An EU diplomat reportedly said the inclusion of crypto firms in the AML watchdog’s agenda was aimed at providing more explicit coverage of crypto transactions under EU regulations surrounding financial services. The news outlet reported the unnamed official wanted the group to focus on high-risk cross-border transactions facilitated by crypto service providers in addition to banks and other financial institutions. However, the proposed framework has yet to be discussed by EU member nations.

“It is key that the scope of the new EU authority explicitly includes crypto-assets, given that this is one of the fields more prone to money laundering activities,” said Luis Garicano, a member of the European Parliament.

La Ley de Servicios Digitales protegerá a los consumidores europeos, pero la UE sigue rezagada en las transformación digital. Necesitamos más inversión en innovación y un sistema universitario a la altura de EEUU y Asia. Mi discurso en pleno pic.twitter.com/yZ0bYqcRD6

— Luis Garicano (@lugaricano) January 21, 2022

If enacted, the AML watchdog would be one of the first regulatory institutions with the authority to oversee money laundering across large regions of Europe. A Chainalysis report from January showed that individuals laundered $8.6 billion worth of cryptocurrency in 2021, representing a 25% increase over that in 2020.

Related: New EU proposal looks to tighten regulations for sending cryptocurrency

In the United States, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced on Feb. 17 the Federal Bureau of Investigation would be forming a “specialized team dedicated to cryptocurrency” called the Virtual Asset Exploitation Unit to potentially track and seize illicitly used funds. The creation of the team came more than four months after the launch of the Justice Department’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, headed by former Deputy Attorney General senior counsel Eun Young Choi.

Tags
Regulation
Bitcoin Regulation
Cryptocurrency Exchange
Europe
Aml
European Union
Related Posts
After BottlePay, Two More Crypto Firms Shut Down Due to Upcoming EU Rules
After BottlePay’s shutdown announcement last week, two more European cryptocurrency firms have shut down because of the upcoming Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules in the European Union. Online crypto gaming platform ChopCoin and mining pool Simplecoin both announced that they are shutting down in under a month in a notice on their website. Both firms cite the EU’s upcoming Anti-Money Laundering Directive that would require the firms to adopt Know Your Client (KYC) measures as the reason for shutting down. Stringent reporting requirements Simplecoin explains that the EU’s proposed directive will subject its service to a wide range of AML and …
Regulation / Dec. 16, 2019
French Financial Regulator Responds to EU’s Crypto Consultation
As the European Commission finished its public consultation on cryptocurrency assets in March, France’s major financial regulator stepped in to express its stance on the matter. The Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), the stock market regulator in France, has published an official response to the EC consultation, outlining some basic proposals regarding their own vision for crypto assets within the EC’s approach. It’s too early to establish a classification of crypto assets In an April 7 statement, the AMF argued that the classification of crypto assets should be based on the existing categories in order to differentiate between crypto assets …
Regulation / April 9, 2020
Consolidation and centralization: How Europe’s new AML regulation will affect crypto
According to recent media reports, six European countries, led by Germany, are working on launching an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) body that will include the cryptocurrency market in its purview. Details remain scarce, but it is known that the initiative involves Germany, Spain, Austria, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The group is working on “the remit and design” of a new international AML watchdog force that will have a particular emphasis on crypto, and the European Commission — the key executive institution of the European Union — will be the primary platform for the discussion. How will the move affect the …
Regulation / March 11, 2022
EU Parliament can outlaw transacting with 'unhosted' wallets, crypto advocate warns
Less than a week after a potential ban on Proof-of-Work (PoW) digital assets was dropped from the EU’s prospective MiCA framework, a new threat to the crypto industry could be emerging in the European Union. This time, it is non-custodial, or unhosted, wallets that are in regulators’ crosshairs. On Thursday, March 31, the European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs will vote on an anti-money laundering (AML) regulatory package that seeks to revise the current Transfer of Funds Regulation (TFR) in a way that extends the requirement of financial institutions to attach information on the transacting parties to crypto …
Regulation / March 28, 2022
European watchdog lists crypto next to lawyers, accountants as an AML threat
Europe’s Anti-Money Laundering and Combatting the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) watchdog, MONEYVAL, has listed monitoring the crypto sector along with “gatekeeper” professionals, such as lawyers and accountants, as priorities in European nations' push to combat money laundering. In a media release based on the findings of its annual report, MONEYVAL called upon European jurisdictions to assess compliance with international standards and implement stricter regulatory policies to combat money laundering facilitated by crypto assets. Elżbieta Frankow-Jaśkiewicz, chief of MONEVYAL, cited the Pandora Papers as an example of how professionals serving as "gatekeepers" could aid the rich and corrupt to launder their …
Regulation / May 4, 2022