As part of the ongoing support to Austria’s efforts in preventing money laundering and terrorism financing more effectively in higher risk non-financial sectors, the Council of Europe is providing tailored guidance and training to regional and local supervisors of dealers, real estate agents, insurance intermediaries and company service providers.

In close collaboration with the concerned Austrian supervisory authorities themselves, the project has developed a comprehensive Manual on risk-based supervision of the above-mentioned four professional sectors for anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) purposes. The Manual is targeted to the particular Austrian context and decentralised supervisory framework, in order to facilitate a consistent application of AML/CFT policies and measures by supervisors across all regional states and districts, while respecting the specificities of the Austrian federal model. It provides detailed guidance and practical tools to be used through all the steps of the supervisory cycle, from strategic planning to corrective actions and follow-up, including data gathering and offsite monitoring, planning and conduction of onsite inspections, inspection findings and reporting, communication to obliged entities as well as private sector awareness-raising. 

In complement to the Manual, to ensure its effective and harmonious application by all regional and local Austrian supervisors, the project is also building their practical capacities through hands-on training courses on risk-based AML/CFT supervision – the first of which took place in Vienna from 24 to 27 March 2025. Gathering 25 supervisors coming from all nine Austrian regional states (or Länder), the four-day in-depth training programme allowed them to review and discuss their respective supervisory practices against the newly produced uniform guidance, but also to immediately apply the tools provided in a step-by-step series of realistic scenario-based exercises. By the end of the training course, the Austrian regional and local supervisors of real estate agents, dealers, insurance intermediaries and company services providers have increased their understanding of risk-based AML/CFT supervision and are expected to apply it more effectively to help thwart the abuse of these sectors for economic crime, thus strengthening the overall preventive system of Austria.  

The next training round will take place from 12 to 15 May 2025 in Salzburg, Austria, covering another group of up to 30 regional and local practitioners of AML/CFT supervision of the sectors of concern. Besides their direct capacity-building benefits, the experience and feedback from both training rounds will also serve to refine the risk-based AML/CFT supervision Manual and associated operational procedures and tools, as well as the related package of training materials. These will be delivered in their final version to Austrian supervisory authorities for their internal institutionalised use beyond the project’s intervention. 

This support is provided within the framework of the Technical Support Instrument (TSI) project on “Regional and local authorities – Enhancing Quality of public administration and cooperation, Prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing”, co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe, and implemented by the Council of Europe, in cooperation with the European Commission – SG REFORM.