Anti-money laundering controls in Europe: same rules, less room for error

EU regulator AMLA draws the line: anti-money laundering controls to be enforced consistently across Europe

On 8 July 2026, the European Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) announced that, for the first time, there will be a harmonized approach to enforcing AML rules across the EU. Once the European Commission approves these standards, they will be directly binding in every Member State.

What does this mean in practice?

• Supervisory authorities will assess violations according to the same fixed criteria: duration, repetition, severity, number of affected customers and whether there is a structural problem with the controls.
• Violations will be divided into four severity categories. For the two most serious categories, a violation will automatically be considered “serious, repeated or systematic”, with all the consequences that entails.
• The rules do not apply only to banks. Under the EU Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR, Art. 3(3)(f) and Annex IV), vehicle traders count as traders in high-value goods for vehicles priced above €250,000. Other vehicle traders are covered by national AML law (the GwG in Germany, the Wwft in the Netherlands) and, from 10 July 2027, by the EU-wide €10,000 cash limit.
• In addition to fines, supervisory authorities can also restrict or withdraw licenses and impose penalty payments until a company has put its affairs in order.
• Management’s conduct counts: supervisors pay particular attention where senior management knew of a violation and took no action, and the rules also cover sanctions on natural persons, including senior management.

A distant concern?

For automotive companies that trade internationally, this is not a distant concern. Anyone who buys or sells vehicles across borders must be able to demonstrate that their business partner has been checked and that the file is complete, up to date and auditable. Going forward, it will no longer matter in which EU country this is assessed: the standard will be the same everywhere, and that standard is becoming higher.

Solution available

At Novatrade²⁴, we developed Click2Comply to enable you to trade across borders without being held back by ‘compliance restrictions’. With one click, you can start the automated KYC and AML investigation and correctly and completely document each transaction based on a reliable KYC profile. With automated anti-money laundering risk detection and all required documents in one audit-ready file, you have 24/7 access to a compliant export file that meets the latest requirements.

Would you like to know whether your file meets the latest requirements? Contact Tom Hessing (+31 73 8200019).