By Stephen O’Reilly
THE proposed European Business Wallet could “unintentionally weaken” financial crime compliance, the Data & Technology for Compliance (DT4C) Alliance has warned.
In a new paper on the proposed measure, DT4C described the initiative as “genuinely transformative”. However, it raised concerns about safeguards and the potential for disruptions to private sector compliance.
The European Business Wallet (EBW) initiative aims to establish a ‘digital briefcase’ that holds a company’s verified data, such as VAT numbers, licenses, and permits. Officials hope it will reduce compliance friction, lower costs, and strengthen the integrity of the internal market.
DT4C said that the initiative “holds significant promise” for the “financial crime compliance ecosystem”.
It cited the EBW’s potential to standardise and accelerate entity verification. It also praised the move to reduce onboarding burdens, and provide a more reliable baseline for KYB and due diligence processes.
However, the Alliance said that it was concerned about “structural risks”. These included the possibility that public register operators could expand their activities into downstream compliance data and services. It also raised concerns that the EBW could disrupt “the specialised private sector ecosystem on which obliged entities depend for risk-based analysis, monitoring, and decision support”.
The paper also warned that the EBW “should not be treated as a substitute for risk-based AML/CFT judgement”, and that public trust infrastructure should not “evolve in ways that distort downstream compliance markets or weaken the wider financial crime prevention ecosystem”.
“The European Business Wallet should strengthen financial crime compliance, not unintentionally weaken it,” DT4C said.
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