On March 24, 2026, the European Union’s Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) convened its inaugural public hearing, a landmark event signalling the body’s transition from policy design into active regulatory execution. AMLA has since published draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) covering how obliged entities must identify, assess, and manage money laundering and terrorist financing risks — replacing the patchwork of national interpretations that previously governed AML in the EU. For compliance teams, the significance of this hearing cannot be overstated: AMLA’s mandate covers the direct supervision of high-risk cross-border financial institutions and the harmonization of enforcement actions across all EU member states. Compliance officers at banks, payment service providers, and other obliged entities must now prepare for a far more assertive supervisory regime than they have encountered from domestic regulators. The shift from national fragmentation to centralized EU supervision is expected to close longstanding loopholes that illicit actors exploited by structuring transactions through jurisdictions with lighter regulatory oversight. With implementing technical standards still in development, financial institutions operating across the EU face an urgent gap analysis obligation — mapping current AML programs against forthcoming AMLA requirements. Institutions that have historically managed compliance nationally must now plan for convergence, audit-trail standardization, and heightened scrutiny of cross-border customer relationships.
By FCCT Editorial Team
, an independent military force, and allied militias in Sudan raped several dozen women and girls in West Darfur’s capital, El Geneina, and those fleeing to Chad between late April and late June 2023, Human Rights Watch said today. The assailants appear to have targeted people because of their Massalit ethnicity and, in some cases, because they were known activists.){kind=link}