Deep Focus: How to improve anti-money laundering efforts in Europe

Bruegel senior fellow Nicolas Véron joins Sean Gibson to delve into the recent Policy Contribution on how to better the European Union anti-money laundering (AML) regime, a paper he has co-written with Joshua Kirschenbaum.

The study offers a response to the evident flaws of the present system, exemplified by a series of banking scandals in multiple European Union countries, and amplified by changing geopolitics.

The shortcomings of the current legal framework are identified by the authors as systemic in nature – the combination of an enforceable single market and national supervision of banks fails to meet the AML objectives.

In their analysis, the authors propose a new European AML authority that would work on the basis of deep relationships with national authorities such as financial intelligence units and law enforcement agencies.

For further reading, you might consider a blog post by Isabel Schnabel and Nicolas Véron discussing the need to "complete the banking union" by breaking the bank-sovereign vicious circle.