Brussels, 1 December 2021
Ambassadors of member states today adopted a mandate of the Council for negotiations with the European Parliament on the proposal for updating the existing rules on information regarding the transfers of funds. The purpose of the update is to extend the rules in order to include certain crypto-assets, thus increasing the effectiveness of the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing in this area as well.
The purpose of the proposal is to introduce obligations for crypto-asset service providers, which will oblige them to collect information on senders and recipients of crypto-asset transfers. Providers will need to make this information available to the authorities supervising the implementation of anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing rules. The latter will improve the traceability of crypto-asset transfers. It will also facilitate the identification of any suspicious transactions that can be blocked if necessary.
Today’s agreement is an important step in closing the gaps in financial systems that are exploited to launder illicit profits or finance terrorist activities. With regard to crypto-assets, an increased risk of money laundering and terrorist financing exists, so I am pleased that the Slovenian Presidency managed to quickly reach an agreement on the Council’s position regarding this important proposal. – Andrej ŠirceljMinister of Finance
In addition to the recently adopted negotiation mandate of the Council for dossiers on digital finance for crypto-assets regulation (MiCA) and digital operational resilience for the financial sector (DORA) and the interim political agreement with the European Parliament on a pilot project for the use of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), today’s Council mandate regarding the Regulation on the Transfer of Funds represents an important achievement of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU and is the result of intensive work by the Presidency on legislative proposals to strengthen rules in digital finance and for the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing.
Background
This proposal is part of a package of legislative proposals to strengthen the EU’s anti-money laundering and countering terrorism financing (AML/CFT) rules, presented by the Commission on 20 July 2021. The package also includes a proposal to create a new EU authority to fight money laundering.
This proposal aligns EU legislation with key standards of the Financial Action Task Force.
- Council negotiating mandate with the European Parliament on information accompanying transfers of funds and certain crypto-assets
- Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on information accompanying transfers of funds and certain crypto-assets (recast)
- Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL establishing the Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism and amending Regulations (EU) No 1093/2010, (EU) 1094/2010, (EU) 1095/2010
- Proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on the mechanisms to be put in place by the Member States for the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing and repealing Directive (EU) 2015/849
- Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing
- The EU’s response to terrorism (background information)