EBA launches central database for AML/CFT

This European reporting system for material CFT/AML weaknesses, EuReCA, will be central to coordinating efforts by competent authorities and the EBA to prevent and counter money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) risks in the Union.

EuReCA will contain information on material weaknesses in individual financial institutions in the EU that competent authorities have identified. Competent authorities will also be reporting the measures they have imposed on financial institutions to rectify those material weaknesses.

Examples of material weaknesses include the lack of adequate AML/CFT policies and procedures including the absence of transaction monitoring at the group level and the absence of policies and procedures for high-risk customers, which increase the ML/TF risk associated with the financial institution. EuReCA also includes internal audit findings identified by a prudential authority during an on-site inspection about which the management body of the senior management appeared to have been informed and decided not to remediate.

The EBA will use information from EuReCA to inform its view of ML/TF risks affecting the EU financial sector. It will also share information from EuReCA with competent authorities as appropriate, to support them at all stages of the supervisory process and should specific ML/TF risks or trends emerge. In this regard, EuReCA will act as an early warning tool, which will help competent authorities to act before ML/TF risk crystallise.