February 18 2016
A top international political priority currently is the fight against terrorist financing. Bolstering the anti-money laundering regime is seen as one way to tackle this and a number of decisions have been taken at international level to speed up AML reforms and improve co-operation between law enforcement. Although targeting terrorist financing, its impact will be felt in all areas of finance.
First up was the “The Egmont Group” a global network consisting of Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) from 151 jurisdictions – including the UK’s National Crime Agency – with 19 other observers. The group met on 1 February 2016 and discussions focused on: improving the flow of financial intelligence; enabling access to sources of financial information; and, expanding the range of reporting entities subject to Suspicious Transaction Reports (STR).
Following the European Commission’s Action Plan to strengthen the fight against the financing of terrorism on 2 February (see our related blog, “Anti-money laundering – speeding up the pace of change”), national Economic and Finance ministers debated the plan on the 12 February. Ministers confirmed that they supported the accelerated implementation of the Fourth Money Laundering Directive (the Commission had urged Member States to bring forward implementation by six months to end of 2016) and backed further improvements to cooperation between national authorities responsible for clamping down on terrorist financing.