Election of the headquarters for the European Anti-Money Laundering and Prevention of Terrorist Financing Authority (AMLA)

AMLA is the centrepiece of the package of anti-money laundering reforms that have been agreed between the Council and the European Parliament. Its objective will be to coordinate the Financial Intelligence Units of the Member States, and to be supervisory, with competence mainly in the financial sector, where its level of supervision will be both indirectly and directly over the obliged entities in this sector that are cross-border and represent a high level of risk. In the non-financial sector, for its part, it will support the supervisors of the different States, and will seek to contribute to the harmonisation of supervisory practices in both sectors. 

The creation of this highest authority in the fight against money laundering is accompanied by a new Regulation and a Directive that seek to align existing rules to rigorously protect the Union's financial systems against money laundering and terrorist financing. While the Directive focuses on the organisation of national systems, the Regulation will bring significant changes to the prevention rules, such as an extension of the entities obliged (notably luxury goods traders and professional football clubs and agents), and will target crypto-asset services.