Preparatory action, Capacity building, programmatic development and communication in the context of the fight against money laundering and financial crimes

EU member states are taking steps to transpose and implement the EU 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5), and many have already established public beneficial ownership registers as an essential tool to promote beneficial ownership transparency and safeguard the integrity of financial markets. Civil society, including non-governmental organisations (NGOs), journalists, academics, experts and trade unions, have a key role to play in this regard as users of beneficial ownership data to identify and expose corruption, money laundering and other financial crimes and as advocates for improving beneficial ownership transparency frameworks and registers. However, the ability of civil society actors to fulfil these roles and use beneficial ownership information varies significantly across member states due to a lack of capacity and access to publicly-accessible, reliable and accurate beneficial ownership data. The Action promoted greater and more comprehensive use of beneficial ownership data by civil society actors and ensured that they are empowered to advocate for improved anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) frameworks. At the same time, this Action has been designed to generate evidence on strengthening relevant legal frameworks and their implementation across member states. Read More