EBA report on virtual IBANs (vIBANs) analysing their characteristics, benefits, and key risks—including money laundering, regulatory arbitrage, and consumer protection gaps—based on a 2023/2024 fact-finding exercise, with recommendations for payment service providers and authorities.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) today published a Report on the issuance of what is commonly referred to as ‘virtual IBANs’ (vIBANs). In the absence of a common definition, the Report observes that the industry issues vIBANs in different ways and for different purposes and national authorities diverge in interpreting and applying regulatory requirements. The Report also identifies resulting issues in terms of money laundering and terrorist financing, consumer and depositor protection, authorisation and passporting, and regulatory arbitrage, and provides recommendations on how to address them.
European Banking Authority (EBA) outlines joint controllership arrangements under GDPR and EUDPR for EuReCA, the central AML/CFT database, defining data protection responsibilities, compliance obligations, and cooperation between EBA, reporting authorities, ESMA, and EIOPA.
Starting from May 2024, supervisors across the European Union (EU) will be able to report names of natural persons to EuReCA, the EU central database on anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) of the European Banking Authority (EBA). Through EuReCA, the EBA has been able to contribute to making supervision more informed, targeted and effective. With this step, the EBA will contribute to further strengthening the fight against money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF) in the EU.
EBA AML/CFT Newsletter Issue 12 covers updates on crypto-asset service provider guidelines, translations of risk-based supervision rules, finalisation of the 'Travel Rule' and restrictive measures, follow-up on peer review progress, and the EBA’s advice on the new EU AML regime including risk assessment and sanctions criteria.