COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT Accompanying the document Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on laying down rules facilitating the use of financial and other information for the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of certain criminal offences and repealing Council Decision 2000/642/JHA
Date: 2018-04-17
Institutions: Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs, European Commission
Subjects: area of freedom, security and justice, banking supervision, criminal law, cross-border cooperation, economic offence, exchange of information, fight against crime, financial transaction, organised crime, terrorism

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  EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Strasbourg, 17.4.2018  SWD(2018) 115 final  COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT  Accompanying the document Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on laying down rules facilitating the use of financial and other information for the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of certain criminal offences and repealing Council Decision 2000/642/JHA  {COM(2018) 213 final} - {SWD(2018) 114 final}  
 
 
Impact  assessment  on  facilitating  the  use  of  financial  and  other  information  for  the  prevention,  detection, 
investigation or prosecution of certain criminal offences. 

Executive Summary Sheet 

A. Need for action 

Why ? What is the problem being addressed ?  
Criminal groups and terrorists often operate across different Member States and their assets, including bank 
accounts, are usually located across the EU or outside of it. Their financial activities might leave an information 
trail in other Member States that can be crucial for investigators. Lack of access or delayed access to financial 
information and bank account information hampers the detection of financial flows resulting from criminal 
activity. Proceeds of crime may remain undetected or cannot be frozen. In addition, Financial Intelligence Units 
(FIUs) face obstacles in the cooperation between them, as well as in accessing law enforcement information 
which is relevant to the perfroamce of their tasks under the 4th Anti-Money Laudnering Directive EU(2015)849 
(4AMLD). 
What is this initiative expected to achieve ?  
This initiative aims at increasing the security in the EU Member States and across the EU by improving access to 
financial information, including bank account information to the competent authorities and bodies in charge for 
the  prevention,  investigation  and  prosecution  of  serious  forms  of  crimes,  enhancing  their  ability  to  conduct 
financial  investigations  and  analysis,  and  improving  their  cooperation.  In  addition,  the  intiaiitve  aims  at 
enhancing the ability of the FIUs to carry out their tasks under the 4AMLD. 
What is the value added of action at the EU level ?  
The  EU  action  would  provide  a  harmonised  approach  to  facilitate  competent  authorities  and  bodies'  access  to 
financial information for the purposes of combating serious crime as well as to strengthen the FIUs’ capabilities 
in fighting money laundering, its predicate offences and terrorist financing. Given the cross-border dimension of 
these  crimes  ,  the  resulting  need  for  competent  authorities  to  have  more  expedient  access  to  information  for 
their analyses and investigations and to cooperate more effectively and efficiently at both the national and the 
cross-border levels, action at EU level is necessary to facilitate a smooth cooperation between authorities and to 
allow them to access and exchange relevant information. 

B. Solutions 

What  legislative  and  non-legislative  policy  options  have  been  considered  ?  Is  there  a  preferred 
choice or not? Why?  

A non-legislative policy Option O and 13 legislative policy options were considered and grouped into:  

Block B: "HOW" should public authorities access and exchange financial information? 

Block A: "WHY" should the competent authorities have access to or exchange financial information? 

• 
OPTION A.1: only to prevent and combat money laundering, its predicate offences and terrorist financing. 
OPTION A.2: only in respect of the "Eurocrimes" set out in Article 83(1) TFEU. 
OPTION A.3: in respect to the forms of crimes as set out in Annex I of the Europol Regulation.  
• 
OPTION B.1: provide competent authorities with access to the national centralised bank account registries 
according to 1) Sub-option B.1.a: direct access; or 2) Sub-option B.1.b: indirect access. 
OPTION B.2: provide competent authorities with access to all other financial information according to 1) Sub-
option B.2.a: direct access; or 2) Sub-option B.2.b: via the FIUs. 
OPTION B.3: provide measures for the exchange of information between FIUs and for FIUs access to and 
exchange of information that competent authorities hold according to 1) Sub-option B.3.a: direct cooperation 
between FIUs; or 2) Sub-option B.3.b: establish a central FIU. 
• 
OPTION C.1: to public authorities responsible for preventing, investigating or prosecuting criminal offences  
OPTION C.2: to the public authorities in Option C.1 and additionally 1) Sub-option C.2.a: the Asset Recovery 
Offices; 2) Sub-option C.2.b: Europol; 3) Sub-option C.2.c: OLAF 
Regarding the access of competent authorities to information, contained in bank account registries, 
the preferred policy option is a combination of options A.3, B.1.a, C.2.a and C.2.b. 
Regarding the access of competent authorities to additional financial information, the preferred 
policy option is a combination of options A.3, B.2.b and C.2.b. 
In order to address obstacles in cross-border FIU cooperation and difficulties met by FIUs to 
cooperate with their domestic LEA partners the preferred policy option is a combination of options A.1, 
B.2.b, B.3.a and C.2.b.  

Block C: "WHO", to which public authorities do the conditions apply? 

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Who supports the preferred option?  
Stakeholders agreed that access to centralised bank account registries would facilitate the effectiveness of law 
enforcement investigations and avoid the costs and administrative burden of untargeted requests to the banks. 
Most  respondents  in  the  public  consultation  agreed  to  grant  access  to  competent  authorities    including  Asset 
Recovery  Offices.  Member  States  agree  to  facilitate  the  cooperation  between  FIUs  and  the  exchange  of 
information  between  FIUs  and  competent  authorities.  In  a  recent  Eurobarometer  survey  92%  of  the 
respondents  agree  that  national  authorities  should  share  information  with  the  authorities  of  the  other  EU 
Member States in order to better prevent and fight crime and terrorism.  

C. Impacts of the preferred option 

What are the benefits of the preferred option (if any, otherwise main ones)?  
The preferred option is expected to provide better means of increasing security and fighting crime in the EU. It  
would  provide  speedier  access  to  clearly  defined  financial  information  and  more  effective  and  efficient 
cooperation between FIUs and competent authorities. It would reinforce the possibility for competent authoritie, 
including,  Asset  Recovery  Offices  and  Europol  to  quickly  access  key  financial  information  which  is  crucial  for 
financial  investigations.  The  preferred  option  would  also  substantially  enhance  the  ability  of  FIUs  to  carry  out 
financial analysis to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. The preferred option would increase costs 
and administrative burden linked to sending and replying to untargeted “blanket” requests.  

What are the costs of the preferred option (if any, otherwise main ones)?  
The  one-off  costs  of  implementing  the  preferred  option  providing  direct  access  to  centralised  bank  account 
registries  and  data  retrieval  systems  are  estimated  at  between  €  5  000  and  €  30  000  (these  have  to  be 
multiplied  by  the  number  of  authorities  to  be  connected  to  the  centralised  bank  account  registries  and  data 
retrieval systems) . The costs of the access to financial information via the FIUs mainly fall on the FIUs.  
How will businesses, SMEs and micro-enterprises be affected ?  
Additional costs for the banking sector are not foreseen. On the contrary, this initiative would lead to significant 
financial savings for the banks, as they would not have to process and answer to blanket requests coming from 
the competent authorities. No specific impacts are expected on SMEs and micro-enterprises.  
Will there be significant impacts on national budgets and administrations?  
The costs of implementing direct access to centralised bank account registries and data retrival systems and of 
the access to financial information via the FIUs will impact on national budgets and administrations. However, 
these  costs  should  be  offset  by  a  reduction  in  the  current  administrative  and  financial  costs  of  competent 
authorities,  as  well  as  by  cost  savings  due  to  a  more  efficient  cooperation  between  FIUs  and  with  competent 
authorities. 
Will there be other significant impacts?  
The  proposed  measures  would  have  an  impact  on  fundamental  rights;  the  interference  with  the  right  to  the 
protection  of  personal  data  would  be  kept  to  the  minimum,  as  the  access  is  limited  and  targetted  only  the 
relevant authorities, thereby ensuring proportionality. Direct access will be allowed to the CBAR/DRS since they 
contain  limited  information.  Access  to  other  types  of  financial  information  will  be  possible  via  the  FIUs.  The 
preferred options do not go beyond what is necessary to achieve the objectives, and are assessed as the least 
intrusive legislative instruments at Union level, in line with the requirements set out by the Court of Justice. A 
future legal proposal would not affect any procedural safeguards as laid down in national law and would provide 
strict safeguards, further mitigating any negative impacts on fundamental rights.  

When will the policy be reviewed?  
The  Commission will monitor the effective implementation of the proposed legislative instruments and, on the 
basis  of  consultations  with  Member  States  and  stakeholders,  will  evaluate  their  achievements  against  their 
objectives and the problems to be addressed within 3 years after adoption of the measures proposed.   

D. Follow up 

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