The Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) is a newly established European Union supervisory agency, created by Regulation (EU) 2024/1620, with its seat in Frankfurt, Germany. AMLA represents the most significant structural reform of the EU’s AML/CFT framework since the introduction of the first Anti-Money Laundering Directive in 1991. Its creation is a direct response to a series of high-profile money laundering scandals involving European banks — including the Danske Bank affair and the Wirecard collapse — which exposed the limitations of the existing model, under which AML supervision was fragmented across dozens of different national competent authorities with inconsistent standards, resources, and enforcement cultures. AMLA’s core mission is to create a genuinely integrated EU-level AML/CFT supervisory system, eliminating the regulatory arbitrage that allowed financial institutions to exploit weaker supervisory regimes in certain Member States.
AMLA will exercise two main functions. First, it will act as a direct supervisor of the highest-risk financial institutions operating across borders within the EU — initially a selected group of credit and financial institutions identified as posing the greatest ML/TF risk — conducting inspections, issuing binding decisions, and imposing sanctions directly where needed. Second, and more broadly, it will act as a central coordinator and standard-setter for the network of national AML supervisors across all EU Member States, ensuring consistent application of the new EU AML Regulation (AMLR) and working to bring supervisory practices up to a common high standard. AMLA is expected to begin its core supervisory activities in 2025–2026, with full operational capacity anticipated by 2028.
AMLA website: https://www.amla.europa.eu/index_en
