The European Union will limit cash transactions

The European Parliament (EP) on Wednesday approved a package of legislation that will strengthen the European Union’s (EU) tools to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. In commercial transactions, cash payments may not exceed 10,000 euros.

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Cash transactions of more than 10,000 euros will only be allowed between private individuals in cases not related to their professional activities.

The legislation also includes enhanced due diligence measures for ultra-wealthy individuals (who own assets worth at least €50 million, excluding the value of their main residence), as well as measures to ensure compliance with targeted financial sanctions and prevent sanctions evasion.

Under the new legislation, persons with a legitimate interest, including journalists, media professionals, civil society organizations, competent authorities and supervisory authorities, will have immediate, direct and free access to beneficial owner information. This information will be collected in Member States’ databases, which will be connected at the EU level. In addition to the current information, the databases will also have to store at least five years old data.

The new rules will give financial intelligence units greater powers to analyze and detect money laundering and terrorist financing, as well as stop suspicious transactions.

In addition, the new regulations will introduce enhanced due diligence and customer identity checks to be carried out by “responsible entities” such as banks, asset and crypto-asset managers or real estate agents. Responsible entities will be required to report suspicious activities to financial reporting units and other competent authorities.

From 2029, top-level professional football clubs involved in high-value financial transactions with investors, sponsors, advertisers or in connection with the sale of players will also have to verify the identity of their customers, monitor transactions and report any suspicious transaction to financial reporting units.

In order to monitor compliance with the new anti-money laundering rules, a new EU institution – the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Authority (AMLA) – will be established in Frankfurt. Its task will be to directly supervise the riskiest financial institutions, to intervene in case of supervisory errors, to act as a center for supervisory authorities of the Member States and a mediator in case of disputes. AMLA will also monitor the implementation of targeted financial sanctions.

The set of legal acts on the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing consists of the sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (adopted with 513 votes “for”, 25 “against” and 33 abstentions), the EU “uniform rules” regulation (adopted with 479 votes ” for’, with 61 ‘against’ and 32 abstentions) and the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) (approved by 482 votes ‘for’, 47 ‘against’ and 38 ‘abstentions’).

Before being published in the Official Journal of the EU, this legislation still needs to be officially adopted by the Council of the EU.

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