Europe’s New AML Authority Steps In as EBA Hands Off Financial Crime Mandate

Key Takeaways

• AMLA Takes the Lead: As of 1 January 2026, AMLA has assumed full responsibility for AML and counter-terrorist financing oversight, ending the EBA’s stand-alone AML/CFT mandate that began in 2020.
• Continuity Over Disruption: Existing EBA AML/CFT guidelines and standards remain in force until AMLA replaces them, ensuring regulatory stability for firms and supervisors during the transition.
• Single Rulebook and Stronger Coordination: AMLA is tasked with completing the EU’s AML/CFT Single Rulebook and improving cross-border cooperation, including closer coordination of national Financial Intelligence Units.
• Direct Supervision Ahead: From 2028, AMLA will directly supervise 40 of the EU’s most complex and high-risk financial institutions, while national authorities retain day-to-day supervision of most entities.
• EBA Retains a Prudential Role: Although AMLA now leads AML/CFT efforts, the EBA continues to embed money laundering and terrorist financing risks into prudential supervision, working closely with AMLA under a formal cooperation framework.

Deep Dive

Europe’s long-planned reshuffle of its anti-money laundering architecture quietly became reality at the start of the year. The European Banking Authority (EBA) formally handed over all of its AML and counter-terrorist financing responsibilities to the Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA), marking the end of the EBA’s stand-alone AML/CFT mandate and the beginning of a new supervisory era for the European Union.

The transfer, completed as part of the EU’s wider AML/CFT legislative package, places AMLA at the centre of a single, more integrated system for tackling financial crime across the bloc. It is a structural shift years in the making, aimed at addressing persistent weaknesses in cross-border supervision and the uneven application of anti-money laundering rules between member states.

Behind the scenes, both authorities say the transition was designed to be deliberately uneventful. Rather than a regulatory reset, the handover focused on continuity. Core EBA assets, including the EuReCa database, accumulated supervisory insights, and risk assessments, have moved across to AMLA. Crucially for firms and supervisors alike, existing EBA AML/CFT guidelines and technical standards remain in force and will continue to apply until AMLA formally replaces them, reducing the risk of regulatory limbo during the changeover.

With the transfer complete, AMLA’s mandate is expansive. The authority is tasked with finishing the EU’s AML/CFT Single Rulebook, driving greater supervisory convergence, and strengthening coordination among national Financial Intelligence Units to improve the exchange of financial intelligence across borders. While day-to-day supervision of most obliged entities will remain with national authorities, AMLA will assume direct oversight of 40 of the EU’s most complex and high-risk financial institutions or groups. That direct supervisory role is expected to begin in 2028.

AMLA’s reach goes beyond banks and financial firms. For the first time at EU level, AML/CFT oversight will extend more systematically into parts of the non-financial sector, reflecting growing concern about risks flowing through gatekeepers outside traditional finance. The authority will also act as a hub for FIU coordination, providing technical support and helping to standardize practices that have historically varied widely across member states.

The shift does not sideline the EBA entirely. While AMLA now leads on AML/CFT policy and supervision, the EBA continues to address money laundering and terrorist financing risks through its prudential lens. That includes embedding ML/TF considerations into authorization and licensing decisions, governance and fit-and-proper assessments, and ongoing prudential supervision. The two bodies are expected to operate in tandem, rather than in parallel silos.

To support that relationship, the authorities have put a formal cooperation framework in place through an ESAs-AMLA Memorandum of Understanding. The agreement is intended to underpin regular information sharing, joint initiatives, and coordinated engagement with the private sector, as well as the joint development of technical standards and guidance where mandates intersect. Areas flagged for close cooperation include de-risking practices, supervisory coordination, and emerging risks linked to innovation and crypto-assets.

The handover represents a big consolidation of the EU’s response to financial crime. By centralizing key functions within AMLA while retaining the EBA’s prudential role, EU policymakers are betting that clearer responsibilities and closer cooperation will translate into more consistent supervision, and fewer blind spots, in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.

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