On May 6, 2021, the European Banking Authority (EBA) launched a public consultation paper on draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on a central database on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) in the EU.

The revised EBA Regulation that came into effect in January 2020 requires the EBA to establish and maintain a central database containing information on AML/CFT weaknesses that competent authorities (CAs) across the EU have identified in respect of individual financial institutions.

The draft RTS outlined the information that would be contain in the database and how the latter would be used and disseminated, including:

• The measures CAs have taken to address those material AML/CFT weaknesses.

• The definition of a weakness and its materiality as well as the corresponding situations where a weakness may occur.

• The type of information that CAs will have to report to the EBA when complying with their reporting obligation:

(i) the general information,

(ii) the information related to a material weakness and

(iii) the information related to a measure taken in response to the latter.

• The analysis of the information by the EBA and how the EBA will make the information available. This would be done in three different ways:

(i) reactively, following a request by a competent authority

(ii) following a declaration made by the authority submitting the information

(iii) and proactively, on the EBA’s own initiative.

• The provisions to ensure the efficiency of the database and how the information will be reported to the EBA and,

• The provisions to ensure confidentiality and data protection with the proposal for

EBA, ESMA, EIOPA and the competent authorities to determined their respective responsibilities as joint controllers of personal data by way of agreement between them.

The EBA and each CA will use the information from the database for more efficiency in the fight against ML/TF.

The consultation runs until 17 June 2021.