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Financial institutions in the European Union could see fewer “blanket requests” from national authorities for data on suspected money launderers and other criminals under new proposals to streamline access to EU citizens’ bank-account information, an EU official said Tuesday. If adopted, the proposals by the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, would reduce the administrative burden on banks by providing law enforcement, tax agencies and other investigators direct access to the centralized bank-account registers all EU member states must establish as early as 2020 under the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive. “Rather than having to send out blanket requests to all...