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Belgium’s Fight Against Financial Crime: Understanding AML Regulations

As a wealthy and influential European power, Belgium has long been a hub for financial activity. However, with great economic power comes great responsibility, and the country has faced an increasing number of financial crime threats in recent years. To combat these threats, Belgium has built a robust regulatory framework for financial institutions and established a financial regulator to oversee compliance.

The Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA)

The FSMA is the primary financial regulator in Belgium, responsible for:

Supervising financial products and services
Ensuring compliance with financial conduct rules and AML/CFT regulations
Surveillance of markets and distributed financial information

The FSMA works closely with other authorities, including the National Bank of Belgium and the Federal Public Service Economy, to ensure that financial institutions are complying with AML/CFT regulations.

Financial Intelligence Processing Unit (CTIF)

The CTIF is another key player in Belgium’s fight against financial crime. As a financial intelligence unit, the CTIF:

Collects and processes AML/CFT data
Provides actionable intelligence for law enforcement investigations

Belgium’s Main AML/CFT Legislation

The Law of 18 September 2017 on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing is Belgium’s main AML/CFT legislation. This law transposes the details of the EU’s Anti-Money Laundering Directives, establishing a set of risk-based AML/CFT requirements for firms operating within Belgium’s jurisdiction.

Complying with Regulations

To comply with these regulations, financial institutions in Belgium must:

Conduct a risk assessment of individual customers
Deploy proportionate AML/CFT measures
- Screen customers against international sanctions lists and watchlists
- Conduct adverse media screening
- Perform ongoing due diligence on high-risk customers

Crypto Regulation

Belgium has also focused on crypto regulation in recent years. The country introduced an amendment to the AML Law in 2022, which brought crypto service providers under the scope of the legislation and introduced new criminal offences and sanctions for non-compliance.

Compliance Support

For financial institutions looking to comply with Belgium’s AML regulations, Ripjar offers a comprehensive screening solution that can help identify potential risks and ensure compliance. With its cutting-edge machine learning technology and access to thousands of global data sources in real-time, Labyrinth Screening is the perfect tool for firms seeking to streamline their screening processes and minimize false positive alerts.