AMLA, the EU’s anti-money laundering authority, has published finalised standards governing how it will work with national financial supervisors to select and directly oversee some of the bloc’s most significant cross-border financial institutions.
The rules cover three core areas: the method for choosing which entities fall under AMLA’s remit, the way supervisory responsibility transfers between national authorities and the EU level, and how AMLA and national supervisors will operate alongside one another.
Beginning in 2028, AMLA will take direct, group-level responsibility for supervising a set of the most impactful cross-border financial institutions in the EU, a duty that until now has sat solely with national authorities. The finalised standards are intended to guarantee that oversight remains consistent and unbroken as responsibility shifts between the two levels.
The selection framework follows a defined sequence. National supervisors are responsible for collecting and verifying the quality of relevant data, after which AMLA performs the risk assessment and decides which firms it will supervise, publishing the outcome on its website. Whenever a firm transfers into or out of AMLA’s oversight, the outgoing authority must pass the institution’s complete supervisory record to the incoming one, avoiding any gaps in coverage.
The standards were drawn up in close collaboration with national supervisors and are built around proportionality. Firms are only required to submit detailed data once identified as eligible for selection, and institutions that supervisors can already confirm do not qualify are excused from reporting entirely. Following adoption by the European Commission, the standards will govern the data gathering and selection exercise running up to the launch of direct supervision in 2028.
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