By AML Intelligence Correspondents
THE AMLA General Board on Tuesday approved the appointment of its five permanent Executive Board members – who include two former FATF presidents.
Separately, some national delegations are questioning the need to bring together the 54-member General Board every month, citing the workload and time commitment involved for both AMLA and its members.
Meeting in person this week the board ratified the five experienced AML leaders who will join Chair Bruna Szego as the senior management team at the new EU agency based in Frankfurt. They are:
- Marcus Pleyer (Germany), Deputy DG in Germany’s Federal Finance Ministry and former President, FATF
- Simonas Krepsta (Lithuania), board Member in change of financial market supervision and digital development, Bank of Lithuania
- Rikke-Louise Petersen (Denmark), Deputy Director General, Danish Financial Supervisory Authority
- Derville Rowland (Ireland), Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Ireland
- Juan Manuel Vega Serrano (Spain), senior advisor, Spanish Ministry of Economy and also a former FATF President.
The General Board of the EU’s 27 national FIUs and central banks (total of 54 members) met in Frankfurt on Tuesday where the five who made the European Parliament’s shortlist each presented for five minutes and then took questions.
They will now be approved at the European Parliament in Brussels next week and then ratified by EU governments at the European Council. It means the Executive Board should be in place by Easter.
Travel
Meanwhile, some Member States are querying why the AMLA General Board should be meeting every month.
“It’s quite a workload for FIUs and central banks as well as AMLA itself to have to meet every month. Yes, every second board meeting will be virtual but it will take up a lot of time. We hope this may be reviewed,” one national delegation member told AML Intelligence.
Another source told us: “You can see why you may need monthly gatherings at the outset perhaps but should we have to meet as a General Council every month. It’s a lot of pressure to put on the Chair and her team. It also puts pressure on us when we have heavy workloads already.”
Travel will also be a factor for many delegations who will likely have to commit two-three days in Frankfurt every second month to attend the General Boards. “There are regular scheduled flights to Frankfurt and for many of us we can use the train service. It will help the Hessen and city economy of course but the General Board will have to consider whether there is a need for monthly meetings. We shall see,” said a well placed source at an EU capital.
MEPs will approve the Executive Board membership at its session in Brussels on March 20.
Meanwhile, Chair Bruna Szego said the authority should consider a “diversity” of financial services when selecting obliged entities who will come under direct supervision.
“We should not focus only on few financial sectors, but rather select the financial institutions that bear the highest inherent and residual risk [while] looking at a broader range of sectors,” Ms Szego said in an interview.
“This appears to me more in line with the AMLA framework, and would allow AMLA to have a better grip on risks … and to raise standards more widely,” she said.
After Tuesday’s meeting the authority in a statement said: “The meeting was an occasion for the Member States representatives to start working together in AMLA and to adopt the rules of procedure for AMLA’s General Board.
“It represents a further step in formalizing the governance structure of AMLA,” the statement added.
ENDS
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