Germany is reportedly setting up a new agency focused on anti-money laundering (AML) and sanctions efforts.
The new organization, called the Federal Financial Crimes Service, will absorb the country’s existing AML agency, the Financial Intelligence Unit, the Financial Times (FT). report On Wednesday (March 29), citing an unnamed source.
A bill to create the new institution is expected to be submitted to the German Bundestag in the coming months, according to reports.
“The purpose of the new agency is … to strategically reorganize the fight against money laundering in Germany,” an unnamed official told the FT.
The creation of this new “strengthened” institution is a result of the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental body focused on restricting money laundering and terrorist financing, that Germany will investigate and prosecute such activities. It comes about seven months after we issued a report that more needs to be done to According to reports.
In December 2022, the head of the Financial Intelligence Unit stepped down after it was discovered that the government was storing a large backlog of suspicious activity reports from the Financial Action Task Force.
The resignation follows months of reports in the German media that the FIU has more than 100,000 outstanding reports dating back more than two years.
The creation of the new agency also comes about four years after the accounting scandal surrounding the bankruptcy of payments firm Wirecard, the report said.
In that case, former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun was formally indicted for fraud, breach of trust and accounting manipulation by Munich public prosecutors in March 2022 after a criminal investigation into a German payments company.
Brown, who has been in custody since July 2020, was charged with approving financial statements he knew were wrong from 2015 to 2018.
Outside Germany, a series of fines have recently highlighted AML failures at European banks.
As PYMNTS reported in December 2022, this includes Gatehouse Bank being fined $1.83 million by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Santander being fined $131.8 million by the FCA. and Crédit Agricole was fined $1.59 million. French ACPR.
Subscribe daily for all PYMNTS EMEA coverage EMEA Newsletter.
Sign up for the PYMNTS.com newsletter to stay up to date on top stories and viral hits.
