EBA publishes final revised Guidelines on money laundering and terrorist financing risk factors

01 March 2021

• The EBA published today its final revised Guidelines on ML/TF risk factors.
• The revisions take into account changes to the EU Anti Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing (AML/CFT) legal framework and address new ML/TF risks, including those identified by the EBAs implementation reviews.
• The Guidelines are central to the EBAs work to lead, coordinate and monitor the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.
• They set out factors that firms should consider when assessing the ML/TF risk associated with a business relationship or occasional transaction.
• The revised Guidelines also provide more details onterrorist financing risk factors.

Legal Basis, background and next steps

• Since then, the applicable legislative framework in the EU has changed.
• On 9 July 2018, Directive (EU) 2018/843 (AMLD5) entered into force and has been applicable from 10 January 2020.
• The original risk factors Guidelines will be repealed and replaced with the revised Guidelines.
• The deadline for competent authorities to report whether they comply with the guidelines will be two months after the publication of the translations.
• The guidelines will apply three months after publication in all EU official languages.