Following the AML report produced earlier this year as part of the analysis of the conditions of secrecy, data protection and other rules restricting transparency and its impact on AML effectiveness.
As part of the analysis it was noted that clients can very easily simply change to another institution which will provide enhanced levels of secrecy each time that at single institution is requested to enforce its practices.
Mr Jesper Berg, Director of the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority noted that will be (on his opinion) more effective to enhance inter sectorial cooperation and therefore allowing Banks to share transactional and client information will be more effective than creating a centralised EU agency dedicated to AML.
Mr. Samu Kurri, Head of financial analysis at Finland’s Financial Supervisory Authority, supported the initiative adding that this will mean a change in the way financial services are being provided to wealthy individuals.
Such a system would not only protect clients from receiving redundant data and document requests but also allow compliance officers to identify customers who were dropped by other banks, Mr. Berg told reported sources.
The level of standardisation that such solution would bring will help a more harmonised application of the AML/KYC efforts produced by EU.
It is to note that in January 2019, standards were produced be the European Supervisory Authorities in order to facilitate intra group exchange of information and to enforce cooperation between member states.
As far as the EU does not define that fighting criminality is priority to data protection and set clear rules and limits for sharing information, criminals will easily use the lack of transparency to continue laundering money, fomenting corruption and committing terror actions.
