The Atlas — what's changing in UK / EU / Swiss financial-crime regulation

15 Aug 2026EUAMLA / Regulation (EU) 2024/1620

AMLA’s selection machinery starts moving — and the six-country gate counts passported activity, not premises

The runway to AMLA’s first directly supervised cohort is now running. AMLA published its reporting package for identifying provisionally eligible obliged entities on 12 May 2026; national supervisors’ data-collection deadline fell on 15 August; a provisional list of eligible entities is expected by end-September 2026, with the selection itself in 2027 and direct supervision from 2028. The eligibility rule is the part worth reading now. Regulation (EU) 2024/1620 has AMLA assess credit institutions, financial institutions and groups only where they operate “in at least six Member States, including the home Member State, regardless of whether the activities are carried out through infrastructure on the territory concerned or remotely”. Two things follow. Below six Member States there is no direct supervision at any risk level — risk is assessed within the eligible population, not used to define it. And because remote provision counts, a crypto-asset service provider passporting into six Member States with no establishment in any of them is inside the gate; CASPs are expressly named in the population AMLA may directly supervise. For a sector whose model is cross-border service without local premises, that clause does more work than the headline number. Only after the gate does the cap apply: up to 40 groups and entities for the first cycle, breadth as the tie-break where more than 40 qualify on risk, and the cohort reviewed every three years. One caution, because it is already being misread: what arrives in September is a provisional list of entities that are ELIGIBLE, not a list of entities selected. No selected list exists, for CASPs or anyone else, and none can until 2027.

What changed

EU crypto perimeter widened by the July 2026 sanctions package

UK designated-body regime switched on

MiCA transition closed — now fully applicable

FCA fixes cryptoasset gateway opening: 30 September 2026

FCA to become the single professional-services AML supervisor

FinIA reform consultation closed

FINMA guidance 01/2026 issued

What just moved, dated

AMLA’s selection machinery starts moving — and the six-country gate counts passported activity, not premises

Liechtenstein's beneficial-ownership register breached — data on some 31,000 legal entities copied

Federal Criminal Court convicts Lombard Odier of AML organisational failure in the Karimova complex — CHF 3m fine, some CHF 400m confiscated

EU sanctions package extends the crypto perimeter — board and ownership ban reaches all MiCA crypto services from 25 August 2026

Court of Appeal discharges worldwide freezing orders where investigators were turned on the opposing solicitor

First designations under the UK's new designated-body regime — a screening duty that sits outside sanctions

Register of Overseas Entities — the requirement to name the trust in a disclosure request is removed

FINMA president calls publicly for direct fining powers and more enforcement transparency

EPPO seizes over €23.5 million in Italian fuel-sector VAT fraud investigation

MiCA transition window closed — providers must hold authorisation or stop serving EU clients

The UK travel-rule threshold became £800 on 30 June — the approved industry guidance still says €1,000

Amended Money Laundering Regulations in force — EDD narrowed, sterling thresholds, trust registration extended

FCA finalises the UK cryptoasset regime — full FSMA authorisation replaces AML-only registration

Swiss Space Systems founder convicted of fraud — five and a half years

SFO opens fraud and money-laundering investigation into collapsed telecoms firm IMC

Federal Administrative Court sets aside FINMA's enforcement ruling against VP Bank (Schweiz) for hindsight reasoning

The PSD2/MiCA No-Action Letter transition has ended — CASPs offering EMT payment services needed authorisation by 2 March

The FCA has rebuilt how it states supervisory expectations — and cryptoasset firms are the one sector without a report

FINMA Guidance 01/2026 published — supervisory expectations reset on custody of crypto-based assets

AMLA now holds every EU AML/CFT mandate the EBA used to hold

EU AMLA operational in Frankfurt — new central AML supervisor stands up