21 October 2022

The European Banking Authority (EBA) today issued a call for expression of interest to join two Technical Expert Groups – on crypto assets service providers and anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (TEG-CASPs/AML), and on restrictive measures regimes (TEG-RMRs) – and a call for input on the Joint Guidelines to prevent the abuse of fund transfers for ML/TF purposes issued in 2017 by the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs). These will provide technical advice to the EBA on those aspects of the revised Regulation on information accompanying transfers of funds (TFR) that relate to the EBA’s mandates.

Members of the TEG-CASPs/AML will provide expertise on the financial crime risks to which CASPs are exposed and challenges that market participants may face when implementing the revised TFR. They will also be expected to advise on how these risks and challenges could be addressed.

Members of the TEG-RMRs will advise the EBA on systems and controls that institutions put in place to comply with restrictive measures regimes and with targeted financial sanctions, and the challenges faced while implementing these systems and controls.

Each group will be chaired by EBA staff and composed of up to 20 experts. Experts should submit their expression of interest to join one of these groups by 4 November 2022 by completing the application form. An EBA selection board will select members based on their experience and knowledge of the relevant topics.

In addition, the call for input aims to identify practical issues that financial institutions experienced when complying with the 2017 ESAs' Joint Guidelines to prevent the abuse of fund transfers for ML/TF purposes. This input will inform possible amendments to the existing Guidelines. The deadline for the submission of responses is 15 November 2022 using the this form.

Legal basis

On 21 July 2021, the European Commission published an AML/CFT package consisting of four legislative proposals and one of these proposals was a recast of the Regulation (EU) 2015/847 on information accompanying transfers of funds (TFR). This recast intends to bring the EU’s legal framework in line with the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) standards by extending the obligation to include information about the originator and beneficiary to CASPs and to set regulatory expectations for the application of the risk-based approach by CASPs and by supervisors responsible for the AML/CFT supervision of CASPs.

The co-legislators reached a provisional agreement on the TFR on 29 June 2022. The EBA has been given 10 legislative mandates on different aspects of the TFR.

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