Whereas:
(1) Regulation (EU) 2015/847 of the European Parliament and of the Council3
has been
substantially amended4
. Since further amendments are to be made, that Regulation should be recast
in the interests of clarity.
(2) Regulation (EU) 2015/847 was adopted to ensure that the Financial Action Task Force
(FATF) requirements on wire transfers services providers, and in particular the obligation on
payment service providers to accompany transfers of funds with information on the payer and the
payee, were applied uniformly throughout the Union. The latest changes introduced in June 2019 in
the FATF standards on new technologies, aiming at regulating so called virtual assets and virtual
asset service providers, have provided new and similar obligations for virtual asset service
providers, with the purpose to facilitate the traceability of transfers of virtual assets. Thus, under
those new requirements, virtual asset transfer service providers must accompany transfers of virtual
assets with information on their originators and beneficiaries, that they must obtain, hold, share with
counterpart at the other hand of the virtual assets transfer and make available on request to
competent authorities.
(3) Given that Regulation (EU) 2015/847 currently only applies to transfer of funds, in the
meaning of banknotes and coins, scriptural money and electronic money as defined in point (2) of
Article 2 of Directive 2009/110/EC, it is appropriate to extend the scope in order to also cover
transfer of virtual assets.
(4) Flows of illicit money through transfers of funds and crypto-assets can damage the integrity,
stability and reputation of the financial sector, and threaten the internal market of the Union as well
as international development. Money laundering, terrorist financing and organised crime remain
significant problems which should be addressed at Union level. The soundness, integrity and
stability of the system of transfers of funds and crypto-assets and confidence in the financial system
as a whole, could be seriously jeopardised by the efforts of criminals and their associates to disguise
the origin of criminal proceeds or to transfer funds or crypto-assets for criminal activities or terrorist
purposes.
(5) In order to facilitate their criminal activities, money launderers and financers of terrorism
are likely to take advantage of the freedom of capital movements within the Union’s integrated
financial area unless certain coordinating measures are adopted at Union level. International
cooperation within the framework of FATF and the global implementation of its recommendations
aim to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing while transferring funds or crypto-assets .
