Europe's anti-money laundering body set to be fully operational in 2028

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's new agency formed to fight dirty money said on Wednesday it was on track to be fully operational in 2028, as it set out its plan to tackle emerging illicit finance risks including crypto and "novel payment channels".

The Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) is being established in Frankfurt, creating the first Europe-wide body to fight illegal financial flows.

From 2028, AMLA will directly supervise 40 EU financial institutions judged to present the biggest risk.

AMLA will finalise its methodology for its risk assessment in 2026 and start the selection process in 2027, it said in a 2026-2028 plan on Wednesday.

It has already met its initial 2025 target of hiring 120 of the 432 staff it aims to employ, AMLA said.

The idea of the EU-wide agency was proposed in 2021, after a major money-laundering scandal highlighted the inadequacy of the bloc's defences against illicit finance.

"AMLA marks a new chapter in Europe’s fight against money laundering and terrorism financing, transitioning from fragmented national responses to a unified, risk-based system tailored to the complexity of today’s criminal networks," AMLA's chair, Bruna Szego, wrote in a report setting out the plan.

"The challenges ahead — from crypto-asset supervision to cross-border criminal innovation — require an Authority that is both technically excellent and anchored in sound governance."

EMERGING FINANCIAL CRIME RISKS

The plan cited developments in the crypto-asset market or novel payment channels as examples of emerging financial crime risks.

Money launderers received at least $82 billion worth of cryptocurrencies last year, up from $10 billion five years earlier, researchers estimate.

Still, the "vast majority" of terrorist financing uses regular money, the Financial Action Task Force has said.

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Brussels on Tuesday, AMLA board member Derville Rowland told Reuters that the agency would follow the evidence to locate the biggest money-laundering risks, and had yet to decide how much of a focus crypto would be.

"Certainly when we look at money-laundering risk it's present in some sectors more than others. For definite, crypto is an area where technology and secrecy can coincide to produce a high money-laundering risk," she said.