The new regulatory body will be called the “Federal Authority for Fighting Financial Crime”. It will supersede the country’s existing AML authority (FIU) Financial Intelligence Unit.
Within the coming months, the agency will be introduced in Germany’s Federal Parliament.
According to the Financial Times report, an undisclosed senior official said that the new agency aims to strategically realign the combat against Money Laundering in Germany.
Seven months ago, when an intergovernmental agency focused on eradicating money laundering and terrorist financing, the new agency was formed by Germany as an additional measure.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) issued a report stating that Germany required more efforts to investigate suspicious activities. In December 2022, FIU’s Executive Chairperson resigned due to which a backlog of suspicious activity reports was created at the agency.
Media reports followed this resignation and revealed that FIU had more than 100,000 unprocessed SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports) that dated back two years and more. This stance on media reports was rejected by the FIU’s head as he said that there is no delay in processing SARs.