The European Commission has published a roadmap relating to its proposal for a Directive to amend the Fourth Money Laundering Directive (MLD4).
The objective of the initiative is to swiftly reinforce the EU framework on the prevention of terrorist financing by:
- improving the effectiveness of the list of high-risk third countries by providing for a harmonised approach at EU level with respect to enhanced due diligence measures to be put in place by Member States;
- enhancing transparency related to anonymous virtual currency, by imposing anti-money laundering (AML) and counter financing of terrorism (CFT) obligations on virtual currency exchange platforms;
- reducing the misuse of anonymous prepaid instruments by further reducing the exemption regime for anonymous pre-paid cards under the MLD4;
- clarifying the powers of and cooperation between financial intelligence units (FIUs) by ensuring that EU law is aligned with the latest international standards on AML/CFT; and
- providing FIUs with an efficient mechanism to get timely access to information on the identity of holders of bank and payment accounts.
The legislative proposal will be designed to amend the MLD4 on five specific targeted points:
- enhanced due diligence measures/counter-measures with regard to high – risk third countries;
- virtual currency exchange platform;
- prepaid instruments;
- the access of FIUs to, and exchange of, information to strengthen FIU powers and cooperation; and
- the access of FIUs to centralised bank and payment account registers or electronic data retrieval systems.
View European Commission roadmap on proposed Directive amending MLD4, 7 April 2016
