On 12 August 2025, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published a Report on the use of technology tools in anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) supervision.

Overview

On 19 June 2024, the AML/CFT package was published in the Official Journal of the European Union which established the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Authority (AMLA) and the associated move towards a common supervisory methodology. This has provided an opportunity for the EBA to consider adapting the current approaches of AML/CFT supervision to the new framework and harness the potential of supervision technology (SupTech) to enhance oversight.

In November 2024, the EBA surveyed competent authorities on their use of SupTech tools whereby 31 competent authorities from 25 EU Member States and 3 competent authorities from third countries responded to the survey. A total of 13 different technologies were applied to address 13 types of AML/CFT supervision tasks or processes. Together with the European Commission’s AMLA Task Force in January 2025, the EBA organised a dedicated workshop to identify challenges and good practices on the use of SupTech in AML/CFT supervision as part of the EBA ‘Forum of EU AML/CFT supervisors on the transition to the new AML/CFT framework’.

Findings

To summarise, the Report highlighted the benefits of adopting SupTech which included enhanced collaboration, improved data quality/analytics and greater scale of supervision under the new AML/CFT framework. However, progress may be hindered by competent authorities not being moderately prepared due to limited resources, legal uncertainty and data governance restraints. These challenges may explain the varying stages of adoption observed across Member States to which the Report emphasised that a ‘one size fits all approach’ to integration would be inadequate.

The Report further identified:

  • The early stages of the use of AML/CFT SupTech: The results suggest overall that AML/CFT SupTech is at an early stage, but its uptake is increasing. Most tools or projects were initiated in the last three years where almost half were in production, 38% were under development and 15% were in the exploratory or ideation phase.
  • Competent authority obstacles: Factors that contributed to a competent authority’s lack of preparedness included fragmented or incomplete data sources, resource gaps, legal and operational risks, and ensuring clear lines of accountability on the use of AI and machine learning SupTech tools for AML/CFT supervision.
  • Good practices: For competent authorities to successfully adopt and implement SupTech tools, the Report mentioned that they will need to address specific challenges including data quality issues, resource constraints, legal uncertainties and friction related to institutional transformation. It highlighted this will depend on a competent authority’s change management, data governance, data standardisation and supervisory strategies being clearly defined and inhibiting cross-border collaboration. Competent authorities will also have to define robust data protection controls ensuring legal clarity for the adoption and implementation of SupTech tools.

Next steps

The EBA will continue to support competent authorities and AMLA in strengthening their use of technology and fostering innovation in AML/CFT supervision across the EU.