EBA Announces Consultation on New Guidelines on Role of AML/CFT Compliance Officers

​The independent EU authority European Banking Authority (EBA), has released on August 2 a public consultation on new draft Guidelines, which would last till 2 November 2021, on the role, tasks and responsibilities of anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) compliance officers.

The EBA works to ensure effective and consistent prudential regulation and supervision across the European banking sector.

Also, the Guidelines include provisions on the wider AML/CFT governance set-up, including at the level of the group. Once adopted, these Guidelines will apply to all financial sector operators that are within the scope of the AML Directive.

The draft Guidelines comprehensively address, for the first time at the level of the EU, the whole AML/CFT governance set-up. They clarify that AML/CFT compliance officers need to have a sufficient level of seniority, which entails the powers to propose, on their own initiative, all necessary or appropriate measures to ensure the compliance and effectiveness of the internal AML/CFT measures to the management body in its supervisory and management function.

Besides, the draft Guidelines specify the tasks and role of the member of the management board, or the senior manager where no management board exists, who are in charge of AML/CFT overall, and on the role of group AML/CFT compliance officers. As information reaching the management body needs to be sufficiently comprehensive to enable informed decision-making, the draft Guidelines set out which information should be at least included in the activity report of the AML/CFT compliance officer to the management body.

Where a financial services operator is part of a group, the draft Guidelines provide that a Group AML/CFT compliance officer in the parent company should be appointed to ensure the establishment and implementation of effective group-wide AML/CFT policies and procedures and to ensure that any shortcomings in the AML/CFT framework affecting the entire group or a large part of the group are addressed effectively.