The Hague, 30 January 2025
Europol and its private partners in the financial sector have issued the EFIPPP Practical Guide for Operational Cooperation between Investigative Authorities and Financial Institutions. This newly-issued Practical Guide saw contributions from numerous EFIPPP public and private sector members, observers, and other experts. The guide provides best practices and lessons learned, drawing from the EFIPPP’s experience as a successful partnership and from other existing cooperative mechanisms. It addresses policymakers, investigative authorities and private stakeholders, providing suggestions to advance operational cooperation from a legal and a practical perspective.
The Europol Financial Intelligence Public Private Partnership (EFIPPP) provides a collaborative mechanism between more than 90 private stakeholders, Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) and law enforcement agencies to address structured threat information across the community. The EFIPPP secretariat is located within the European Financial and Economic Crime Centre (EFECC) at Europol.
The drafting of the Practical Guide was based on existing operational cooperative mechanisms in Denmark, Ireland, Latvia, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK. Taking a practical approach, the Practical Guide highlights that successful collaboration relies on trust between public and private stakeholders. Providing an outline of the building blocks required for successful collaboration, it recommends starting small with realistic expectations, and providing leadership by example.
Catherine de Bolle, Europol Executive Director
Today financial and economic crime represents one of the most pervasive dangers to our society, threatening its very fabric. Collaboration between competent authorities and the private sector in the financial arena is crucial to improving the fight against organised crime and terrorism. Together we can tackle the complex schemes set up by criminals and terrorist groups to hide their assets across the globe.
Wim Mijs, CEO of the European Banking Federation
The EBF is a proud partner of the leading cross-border community fostered by EFIPPP in the fight against financial crime. The insights shared in today’s Practical Guide highlight the power of trust and collaboration when working with European authorities. This guide offers valuable insights for building impactful operational public-private partnerships and driving meaningful action against financial crime.
As well as offering hands-on guidance to investigative authorities and financial institutions in shaping their cooperation, the Practical Guide provides inspiration for policymakers in areas where there is not yet an enabling legal environment. With this guide, the EFIPPP delivers on the call made by the European Commission in its EU roadmap to fight drug trafficking and organised crime.
Source – Europol