04th April 2025
The Centralised Bank Account Register (CBAR) was introduced in October 2020 and serves as a searchable database encompassing bank and payment accounts identifiable by IBAN, safe custody services (SCS), and safe deposit boxes (SDB) offered by credit and financial institutions. Derived from Directives (EU) 2018/843 (the 5th AML Directive) and (EU) 2019/1153 on the use of financial information, these requirements were transposed locally through the Centralised Bank Account Register Regulations (S.L. 373.03).
Regulation 4(2) of the Centralised Bank Account Register (CBAR) Regulations and the FIAU’s ‘Notice: CBAR System – Go-Live Date and Submission of the XML File’ (the Notice ), requires credit and financial institutions (Reporting Entities) to make available data and information once every seven (7) calendar days. This Notice was issued in terms of Regulation 5 of the CBAR Regulations, and its contents were to be considered as binding, subsequently, failure to adhere to this Notice might result in the institution concerned facing enforcement action.
Scope and use of CBAR
The information stored in CBAR is accessible to the FIAU, the Malta Police Force, the Asset Recovery Bureau, the Commissioner for Revenue, the Sanctions Monitoring Board and the Malta Security Service for the purposes of preventing, detecting, investigating, or prosecuting money laundering, associated predicate offences, funding of terrorism or any other serious criminal offence. Therefore, the importance of the information stored in CBAR cannot be underestimated.
For further details, the relevant document can be accessed at the following link.