for the formation of the register. it must contain the personal identifying particulars, including tax number, of the persons with whom the institution has relations from 2005 on. data on the amount of funds in the accounts, on transactions thereon, or on the amount of assets under management are not to be reported. access to the register – reserved to the tax administration, the courts and the investigative bodies expressly specified by the law and solely for the purposes specified – is open also to the uic, which can use the data for its further inquiry into suspicious transactions. contacts are under way between the uic and the tax administration for the prompt institution of a link, which should become operational in the next few months. the tax the fiu, then, is a crucial node in a complex web of relations. domestically, it engages in intensive dialogue with the persons submitting the reports, with the supervisory authorities, with the investigative bodies and with the courts. internationally, it forms part of the network of cooperation made up of all its counterpart authorities abroad. 4 the most significant money laundering activity has supranational implications. for effective prevention, therefore, both cooperation between the authorities of the countries involved and uniform rules to prevent distortion and regulatory arbitrage are essential. accordingly, fius take part in the international bodies assigned to the prevention and suppression of money laundering and in bilateral and multilateral initiatives. as the supervisory authority for the credit system, the bank of italy is responsible for guaranteeing the sound and prudent management of the individual institutions under its supervision and for the overall stability, efficiency and competitiveness of the financial system. with a view to these purposes the legislation and regulations in force oppose entry into the banking sector of unreliable operators ; set integrity and experience requirements for top corporate officers and significant shareholders ; subject the owners of intermediaries to controls on personal qualifications and on conflicts of interest ; require adequate organization and in particular an effective system of internal controls ; and promote transparency and fairness in relations with customers. these are all provisions that help to prevent the exploitation of financial mechanisms for money laundering and that testify to the existence of complementary relations and convergence between the aims of credit and financial supervision and those of the law against money laundering. in order to strengthen the safeguards against the exploitation of intermediaries for purposes of money laundering, the bank of italy first issued its “ operating instructions for identifying suspicious transactions ” in 1993. the instructions are intended to assist intermediaries by specifying indicators of

with investigative duties as well, grouping functions deriving from the bodies responsible for financial supervision, the police and the courts. in italy the latter solution would have been hard to realize and manage, given the high cost of creating and operating such an agency and the difficulty of bringing together qualified resources, removing limits on access to the confidential information held by single administrative units for their own, specific tasks. in the span of just a few years three major legislative changes transformed the uic ’ s nature and functions radically : the 1997 law separating the investigative from the financial area, which assigned the office a key role in combating money laundering ; legislative decree 319 / 1998, following the introduction of the european single currency, which restructured the office and made it an instrumental entity of the bank of italy ; and law 388 / 2000, implementing the principles of an eu council decision ( 2000 / 642 / gai ), which formally instituted italy ’ s national financial intelligence unit under the uic. within the tripartite division of anti - money - laundering functions among the entities assigned respectively to financial analysis, investigation and trial, the uic receives suspicious transaction reports and examines them further from the financial standpoint, serving as filter between the persons submitting the reports and the investigative bodies and the courts. the fiu receives information not only from the persons subject to the reporting requirement but also from internal and external archives, other government departments and agencies, and its foreign counterparts. the sources of information also include the database now being formed in the framework of the taxpayers register ( provided for by decree law 223 / 2006, ratified by law 248 / 2006 ), which is the equivalent in some respects of the register of bank accounts and deposits contemplated by the law since 1991 but never realized. 2 the new rules require banks, other financial intermediaries and poste italiane to report to the taxpayers register all relations with customers, as determined by an instruction issued by the director of the revenue agency. 3 law 413 / 1991, article 20. 4, provided for the establishment of a register of all persons with accounts or deposits with banks and other financial intermediaries. the procedures for its constitution were to be specified in the implementing regulations, which were issued in 2000 by treasury decree 269. the decree assigned the operation of the register to the ministry of the treasury and also specified the persons allowed access to the data ( article 4 ). the instruction was issued on 19 january 2007. a circular dated 4 april introduced additional provisions