23rd December 2022

The Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) would like to notify subject persons that the European Banking Authority (EBA) has issued a consultation paper on effective management of ML/FT risks and access to financial services.

The consultation relates to the addition of a new section to the EBA’s Guidelines on ML/FT risk factors (EBA/GL/2021/02) which, in general, provide guidance to financial institutions on how to identify and tackle ML/TF risk. The proposed amendments include an annex establishing the factors which need to be considered by the subject person when determining the ML/FT risks linked to a business relationship with a customer being a Not-for-Profit Organisation (NPO).

Additionally, the EBA is consulting on a newly drafted guidelines document entitled ‘Guidelines on policies and controls for the effective management of ML/TF risks when providing access to financial services’.  These newly drafted EBA guidelines assist subject persons in establishing effective ML/FT risk management methods to ensure access by customers, including those considered the most vulnerable, to financial products and services. It provides further guidance on effective establishment of policies, controls, and procedures. These Guidelines are provided in the light of the right of access to a payment account with basic features as established in Article 16 of Directive (EU) 2014/92.

The consultation exercise intends to address the situation of de-risking of entire categories of customers. This is generally performed without taking into consideration the individual customers’ risk profiles. This situation runs counter to the risk-based approach applied in AML/CFT and may result in unjustified and ineffective ML/FT risk management.

The EBA is inviting interested parties to put forward any comments on the Consultation Paper and particularly on the specific questions summarised in Section 6.2 of the document.

The deadline is the 6^th February 2023. Kindly click on the following link for further information on the submission of responses.