Source: OJ L, 2024/1640, 19.6.2024Current language: EN
- Anti-money laundering
Basic legislative acts
- Sixth anti-money laundering (AML 6) directive
Article 37 Powers and resources of national supervisors
Summary What does Article 37 of the Sixth anti-money laundering (AML 6) directive say?
This is a substantial foundational article that establishes the national supervisory framework for AML/CFT compliance.
It places the core obligation on Member States to ensure all obliged entities within their territory are subject to adequate and effective supervision, and to appoint the supervisors needed to make that happen.
The article is closely linked to Article 38, which covers specific cross-border scenarios that fall outside this general framework.
Beyond simply mandating supervision, the article goes into considerable detail on what supervisors must be equipped with: adequate resources, staff of high integrity, clearly defined tasks, and meaningful enforcement powers.
It also addresses structural flexibility, permitting self-regulatory bodies to perform supervisory functions in certain professional sectors, and requiring coordination mechanisms where supervision is split across multiple bodies.
Important points:
- Member States are required to appoint one or more supervisors to ensure obliged entities comply with the applicable AML/CFT regulations.
- Supervisors must have adequate financial, human, and technical resources, and their staff must maintain high professional standards including on confidentiality, data protection, and conflicts of interest.
- Financial supervisors and supervisors of gambling service providers hold enhanced inspection powers, including the ability to conduct unannounced on-site inspections and access books, records, IT systems, and personnel.
Springlex's summary of the article, a reading aid, not a substitute for the legal text.
Each Member State shall ensure that all obliged entities established in its territory, except for the circumstances covered in Article 38, are subject to adequate and effective supervision. To that end, each Member State shall appoint one or more supervisors to monitor effectively, and to take the measures necessary to ensure compliance by the obliged entities with Regulations (EU) 2024/1624 and (EU) 2023/1113.
Where, for reasons of overriding general interest, Member States have introduced specific authorisations requirements for obliged entities to operate in their territory under the freedom to provide services, they shall ensure that the activities carried out by the obliged entities under those specific authorisations are subject to supervision by their national supervisors, regardless of whether the authorised activities are carried out through an infrastructure in their territory or remotely. Member States shall also ensure that supervision under this subparagraph is notified to the supervisors of the Member State where the head office of the obliged entity is located.
This paragraph shall not apply when AMLA acts as a supervisor.
Member States shall ensure that supervisors have adequate financial, human and technical resources to perform their tasks as listed in paragraph 5. Member States shall ensure that staff of those authorities are of high integrity and appropriately skilled, and maintain high professional standards, including standards of confidentiality, data protection and standards addressing conflicts of interest.
In the case of the obliged entities referred to in Article 3, points (3)(a) and (b), of Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, Member States may allow the function referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article to be performed by self-regulatory bodies, provided that those self-regulatory bodies have the powers referred to in paragraph 6 of this Article and have adequate financial, human and technical resources to perform their functions. Member States shall ensure that staff of those bodies are of high integrity and appropriately skilled, and that they maintain high professional standards, including standards of confidentiality, data protection and standards addressing conflicts of interest.
Where a Member State has entrusted the supervision of a category of obliged entities to more than one supervisor, it shall ensure that those supervisors supervise obliged entities in a consistent and efficient manner across the sector. To that end, the Member State shall appoint a leading supervisor or establish a coordination mechanism among those supervisors.
Where a Member State has entrusted the supervision of all obliged entities to more than one supervisor, it shall establish a coordination mechanism among those supervisors to ensure that obliged entities are effectively supervised to the highest standards. Such a coordination mechanism shall include all supervisors, except where:
supervision is entrusted to a self-regulatory body, in which case the public authority referred to in Article 52 shall participate in the coordination mechanism;
supervision of a category of obliged entities is entrusted to several supervisors, in which case the lead supervisor shall participate in the coordination mechanism; where no lead supervisor has been appointed, supervisors shall designate a representative among them.
For the purposes of paragraph 1, Member States shall ensure that the national supervisors perform the following tasks:
to disseminate relevant information to obliged entities pursuant to Article 39;
to decide on those cases where the specific risks inherent in a sector are clear and understood and individual documented risk assessments pursuant to Article 10 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 are not required;
to verify the adequacy and implementation of the internal policies, procedures and controls of obliged entities pursuant to Chapter II of Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 and of the human resources allocated to the performance of the tasks required under that Regulation, as well as, for supervisors of collective investment undertakings, to decide on those cases where the collective investment undertaking may outsource the reporting of suspicious activities pursuant to Article 18(7) of Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 to a service provider;
to regularly assess and monitor the money laundering and terrorist financing risks as well as the risks of non-implementation and evasion of targeted financial sanctions the obliged entities are exposed to;
to monitor compliance by obliged entities with regard to their obligations in relation to targeted financial sanctions;
to conduct all the necessary off-site investigations, on-site inspections and thematic checks and any other inquiries, assessments and analyses necessary to verify that obliged entities comply with Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, and with any administrative measures taken pursuant to Article 56 of this Directive;
to take appropriate supervisory measures to address any breaches of applicable requirements by the obliged entities identified in the process of supervisory assessments and follow up on the implementation of such measures.
Member States shall ensure that supervisors have adequate powers to perform their tasks as provided for in paragraph 5, including the power to:
compel the production of any information from obliged entities which is relevant for monitoring and verifying compliance with Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 or Regulation (EU) 2023/1113 and to perform checks, including from service providers to whom the obliged entity has outsourced part of its tasks to meet the requirements of those Regulations;
apply appropriate and proportionate administrative measures to remedy the situation in the case of breaches, including through the imposition of pecuniary sanctions in accordance with Section 4 of this Chapter.
Member States shall ensure that financial supervisors and supervisors in charge of gambling service providers have powers additional to those referred to in paragraph 6, including the power to inspect the business premises of the obliged entity without prior announcement where the proper conduct and efficiency of an inspection so require, and that they have all the necessary means to carry out such inspection.
For the purposes of the first subparagraph, the supervisors shall at least be able to:
examine the books and records of the obliged entity and take copies or extracts from such books and records;
obtain access to any software, databases, IT tools or other electronic means of recording information used by the obliged entity;
obtain written or oral information from any person responsible for AML/CFT internal policies, procedures and controls or their representatives or staff, as well as any representative or staff of entities to which the obliged entity has outsourced tasks pursuant to Article 18 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, and interview any other person who consents to be interviewed for the purpose of collecting information relating to the subject matter of an investigation.
Springlex and this text is meant purely as a documentation tool and has no legal effect. No liability is assumed for its content. The authentic version of this act is the one published in the Official Journal of the European Union.
Definition
crypto-asset services
Definition
supervisor
Definition
financial mixed activity holding company
Definition
crypto-asset service provider
Definition
funds or other assets
Definition
financial supervisor
Definition
credit institution
- a credit institution as defined in Article 4(1), point (1), of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013;
- a branch of a credit institution, as defined in Article 4(1), point (17), of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013, when located in the Union, whether its head office is located in a Member State or in a third country;
Definition
crypto-asset
Definition
property
Definition
terrorist financing
Definition
gambling service
Definition
targeted financial sanctions
Definition
money laundering
Definition
financial institution
- an undertaking other than a credit institution or an investment firm, which carries out one or more of the activities listed in points (2) to (12), (14) and (15) of Annex I to Directive 2013/36/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council(32), including the activities of currency exchange offices (bureaux de change), but excluding the activities referred to in point (8) of Annex I to Directive (EU) 2015/2366, or an undertaking the principal activity of which is to acquire holdings, including a financial holding company, a mixed financial holding company and a financial mixed activity holding company;
- an insurance undertaking as defined in Article 13, point (1), of Directive 2009/138/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council(33), insofar as it carries out life or other investment-related assurance activities covered by that Directive, including insurance holding companies and mixed-activity insurance holding companies as defined, respectively, in Article 212(1), points (f) and (g), of Directive 2009/138/EC;
- an insurance intermediary as defined in Article 2(1), point (3), of Directive (EU) 2016/97 where it acts with respect to life insurance and other investment-related insurance services, with the exception of an insurance intermediary that does not collect premiums or amounts intended for the customer and which acts under the responsibility of one or more insurance undertakings or intermediaries for the products which concern them respectively;
- an investment firm as defined in Article 4(1), point (1), of Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council(34);
- a collective investment undertaking, in particular:
- an undertaking for collective investment in transferable securities (UCITS) as defined in Article 1(2) of Directive 2009/65/EC and its management company as defined in Article 2(1), point (b), of that Directive or an investment company authorised in accordance with that Directive and which has not designated a management company, that makes available for purchase units of UCITS in the Union;
- an alternative investment fund as defined in Article 4(1), point (a), of Directive 2011/61/EU and its alternative investment fund manager as defined in Article 4(1), point (b), of that Directive that fall within the scope set out in Article 2 of that Directive;
- a central securities depository as defined in Article 2(1), point (1), of Regulation (EU) No 909/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council(35);
- a creditor as defined in Article 4, point (2), of Directive 2014/17/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council(36) and in Article 3, point (b), of Directive 2008/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council(37);
- a credit intermediary as defined in Article 4, point (5), of Directive 2014/17/EU and in Article 3, point (f), of Directive 2008/48/EC, when holding the funds as defined in Article 4, point (25), of Directive (EU) 2015/2366 in connection with the credit agreement, with the exception of the credit intermediary carrying out activities under the responsibility of one or more creditors or credit intermediaries;
- a crypto-asset service provider;
- a branch of a financial institution referred to in points (a) to (i), when located in the Union, whether its head office is located in a Member State or in a third country;
Definition
self-regulatory body
Definition
third country
Definition
funds
Definition
obliged entity