S5 Ep15: Deep Focus: How to improve anti-money laundering efforts in Europe

Bruegel senior fellow Nicolas Véron joins Sean Gibson to
delve into the recent Policy Contribution on how to better the
European Union anti-money laundering (AML) regime, a paper he has
co-written with Joshua Kirschenbaum.


The study offers a response to the evident flaws of the present
system, exemplified by a series of banking scandals in multiple
European Union countries, and amplified by changing geopolitics.


The shortcomings of the current legal framework are identified by
the authors as systemic in nature – the combination of an
enforceable single market and national supervision of banks fails
to meet the AML objectives.


In their analysis, the authors propose a new European AML
authority that would work on the basis of deep relationships with
national authorities such as financial intelligence units and law
enforcement agencies.


For further reading, you might consider a blog post by Isabel
Schnabel and Nicolas Véron discussing the need to "complete the
banking union" by breaking the bank-sovereign vicious circle.