The Council of Europe’s Economic Crime and Cooperation Division, in cooperation with the European Commission Directorate General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM) organised a Workshop on lessons learnt and good practices for developing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (ML/TF) Sectoral Risk Assessments for the financial sector in Romania.
The event, which took place on 19 May 2022 in Bucharest, Romania, was organised following the request of representatives of the National Bank of Romania (NBR) and the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) to receive more support in further developing their sectoral ML/TF risk assessment of the financial sector.
The NBR and FSA employees, along with representatives of the National Office for Prevention and Control of Money Laundering (Romanian Financial Intelligence Unit - FIU) – which is also responsible for supervising certain non-bank financial institutions – benefited from practical interventions from the perspective of the international expertise of the Council of Europe, including presentations on applicable good practices in conducting sectoral assessments of ML/TF risks for the financial sector, and targeted recommendations for developing such a sectoral risk assessment (SRA) in Romania. In order to get a better understanding of the different steps of the process, participants were also provided with an overview of different SRAs methodologies and approaches at European and global level.
Finally, the last part of the workshop provided the opportunity for a focused discussion and specific expert recommendations on how to develop the Romanian financial sector’s sectoral risk assessments based on the findings of the recently-conducted ML/TF National Risk Assessment of Romania.
The project will further support the relevant beneficiary institutions in this endeavour, notably by involving their representatives in various events aimed at sharing the experience and good practices of other EU Member States’ regulators.
This event was organised within the framework of the Structural Reform Support Programme initiative “Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Risk Compliance: Implementing a National Mechanism to Assess and Manage Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Risks in Romania”, funded by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Structural Reform Support and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe.