The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today its central database for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT).

EuReCA will contain information on material weaknesses in individual financial institutions in the EU that competent authorities have identified. Competent authorities will also be reporting the measures they have imposed on financial institutions to rectify those material weaknesses.

Examples of material weaknesses include the lack of adequate AML/CFT policies and procedures including the absence of transaction monitoring at the group level and the absence of policies and procedures for high-risk customers, which increase the ML/TF risk associated with the financial institution. EuReCA also includes internal audit findings identified by a prudential authority during an on-site inspection about which the management body of the senior management appeared to have been informed and decided not to remediate.

The EBA will use information from EuReCA to inform its view of ML/TF risks affecting the EU financial sector. It will also share information from EuReCA with competent authorities as appropriate, to support them at all stages of the supervisory process and, in particular, should specific ML/TF risks or trends emerge. In this regard, EuReCA will act as an early warning tool, which will help competent authorities to act before ML/TF risk crystallise.

Legal basis

EuReCA has been established based on provisions in article 9a (1) and (3) of the EBA Regulation and in the draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on a central database on AML/CFT in the EU that were published on the EBA’s website on 20 December 2021.

EuReCA will not start to collect personal data until the approval of the draft RTS by the European Commission.