By CARLO BOFFA, EU Correspondent
The Egmont Group has established an annual international day to mark its founding and recognise the role Financial Intelligence Units play in safeguarding the global financial system.
International FIU Day will be celebrated each year on June 9, the date the group was founded in 1995 at the Egmont Palace in Brussels.
Egmont Group head Elżbieta Franków‑Jaśkiewicz said the day is an opportunity to recognise the work of FIU staff globally. “Every day, FIUs work behind the scenes to analyse financial intelligence, support investigations, and protect societies from criminal abuse,” she said.
The Ottawa-based body brings together 182 FIUs worldwide. Through the new commemoration, it aims to reaffirm its mission to foster development, share expertise and promote secure cooperation among members.
FIUs serve as a central hub for finance intelligence within their countries. Their job is to analyse and disseminate financial information to support investigations and disrupt illicit financial flows.
They emerged in the years following the 1988 Vienna Convention, which made money laundering a major policy priority. The U.S. FinCen, established in 1990, is widely considered the first modern FIU.
In 2025, the Egmont Group made FIUs’ operational independence a formal requirement for each of its members. The units are organised differently in each country, with some attached to local central banks, others to police forces or ministries.
Franków‑Jaśkiewicz called in a recent speech to strengthen partnerships between FIUs and the private sector to facilitate the dissemination of information.
“As financial crime becomes more complex, fast-moving, and cross-border, no single authority or dataset is sufficient.
“Effective collaboration between Financial Intelligence Units and the private sector is essential to connect fragmented information and turn it into actionable intelligence,” ” she said in a speech at the Wolfsberg Group Forum.
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