AMLA Chair Bruna Szego Announces Top Priorities at 2025 Dublin Summit

Bruna Szego, the Chair of the EU’s new Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA), shared her top three priorities for the EU’s fight against financial crime at the European Anti-Financial Crime Summit 2025 in Dublin by stressing the importance of standardizing the regulations across member states.

“In the past, fragmented rules and oversight and uneven enforcement created cracks in our system, cracks that criminals were quick to exploit,” stated Bruna Szego.

It marked her inaugural keynote speech since becoming AMLA Chair. She emphasized, “With AMLA, we will bridge those gaps and reinforce cooperation across borders.”

Ms Szego said this would be done by focusing on three key ‘pillars’. These are:

• Establishing uniform standards across the jurisdiction of the EU for financial institutions.
• Promoting stronger collaboration between private and public institutions.
• Directly overseeing the 40 largest financial firms in the EU.

She highlighted Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) as an example of the system’s present inconsistencies, stating that STR criteria vary between member states, leading to deviations in reporting requirements.

“One of AMLA’s primary responsibilities is to achieve convergence. But what does this mean? It begins with effective information exchange and the establishment of clear standards for STRs and their analysis, resulting in more consistent feedback,” she stated.

The second pillar will focus on strengthening cooperation across the EU financial system. “AMLA will act as a hub fostering cooperation between EU institutions, national authorities, FIUs [Financial Intelligence Units], and law enforcement agencies, international bodies, and non-EU authorities will also be crucial,” Ms Szego said.

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The final notable point she stated is direct supervision, where one of the agency’s key tasks will be to directly supervise the 40 most prominent financial companies of the EU. These organizations are expected to fall under direct AMLA supervision starting in early 2028.

“These entities will be subject to rigorous, consistent oversight to ensure that strong defenses against financial crime are in place, but also effectively working,” she mentioned.

Ms Szego also raised the point that AMLA’s drive for harmonization will help cut costs.

“The goal that I think we need to consider is compliance costs,” she said. “We have to ensure that regulations are written in such a manner that they achieve the goals that we all desire while reducing expenses.”

Reportedly, AMLA’s renewed strategy has marked a pivotal shift in the EU’s approach to fighting financial crime with harmonized rules and direct oversight.