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The EU’s new Anti-Money Laundering Authority should directly supervise not only banks, but also other types of financial institutions to have the greatest impact on compliance throughout the bloc’s 27 nations, the agency’s chief told ACAMS moneylaundering.com.

AMLA will set uniform standards for compliance and supervision across the EU, serve as a data-sharing hub for national financial intelligence units and, from July 2028 onwards, directly oversee 40 financial services companies that, based on their systemic importance and exposure to illicit finance, present a comparatively high level of risk to the bloc.

In her first interview since taking the helm at AMLA last month, veteran Italian regulator Bruna Szego told moneylaundering.com that her agency must consider a “diversity” of financial services when selecting candidates for direct supervision.

“We should not focus only on few financial sectors, but rather select the financial institutions that bear the highest inherent and residual risk [while] looking at a broader range of sectors,” Szego said. “This appears to me more in line with the AMLA framework, and would allow AMLA to have a better grip on risks … and to raise standards more widely.”

Szego’s vision aligns with the regulatory technical standards, or RTS, published Thursday by the European Banking Authority, AMLA’s current, closest analogue in the EU.

Under the proposal, high-risk banks, money services businesses and other companies regulated for AML purposes and present in at least six EU nations could find themselves under AMLA’s direct watch by mid-2028, provided that their services there constitute a “material part” of their business.

The RTS published Thursday have undergone several permutations since the EU’s plans to create AMLA surfaced in July 2021. Earlier, draft versions fueled concerns that large banks would receive the lion’s share of the new agency’s attention despite the outsized role of smaller lenders, fintechs and cryptocurrency platforms in recent money-laundering scandals.

Szego, 58, joined Banca d’Italia, Italy’s central bank, in 1990 and led the regulator’s Anti-Money Laundering Supervision and Regulation Unit from June 2022 until her arrival at AMLA last month.

She is expected to chair the first meeting of AMLA’s general board, which consists of representatives of national supervisors and financial intelligence units, in the coming days.

Szego told moneylaundering.com Friday that in addition to fostering close relationships with those agencies, other EU-level supervisors and law enforcement, she also wants AMLA to regularly consult banks and other financial institutions on emerging, financial crime-related threats, and for input on future, bloc-wide requirements against illicit finance.

“I think the dialogue with the financial industry is essential,” Szego said. “It has been such in my previous role, and it will be in my new one.”

Such dialogue would serve to strengthen AML compliance throughout the EU, said Szego, and also ensure that any future rules or standards AMLA promulgates “achieve their objectives at minimum cost.”

Watching closely so that the EU’s forthcoming AML regulation, which enters into force in July 2027, does not impose unreasonable expenses on commercial institutions will meanwhile prevent unfair exclusion and “de-risking” of entire categories of customers from the financial system, Szego said.

The former central banker ranked AMLA’s top objectives for 2025 as laying the groundwork to serve as both an AML supervisor and financial intelligence-sharing hub for the entire EU, getting the agency’s IT and governance systems up and running, and recruiting more staff.

Moneylaundering.com reported in January that AMLA aims to have 80 employees on payroll by the end of this year and a full headcount of 432 by the end of 2027.

Appointing an executive board to oversee AMLA’s decisions will pave the way for the agency to go fully operational by summer. EU officials have interviewed eight candidates for the board and plan to appoint five members by the end of the month.

“The biggest challenge is ensuring … that best standards in FIUs [financial intelligence units] and supervision will be applied—considering that the starting point is a quite fragmented European landscape—while on the other hand ensuring no one is left behind,” said Szego.

Moneylaundering.com will publish Koos Couvee’s interview with Szego on Wednesday.

Contact Koos Couvée at kcouvee@acams.org