Press release
31.08.2021
The agreement details expectations of Finantsinspektsioon for the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) in receiving strategic analysis of the risks related to money laundering and terrorist financing and circumvention of international financial sanctions. The agreement will also help clarify the FIU’s expectations for Finantsinspektsioon in receiving assessments of the core data on financial markets and their operation, and in identifying cases and risks of money laundering and terrorist financing.
Finantsinspektsioon observes that the companies it supervises have appropriate systems for countering money laundering and terrorism financing, and it uses recommendatory guidelines to steer those companies. Since the start of the year, Finantsinspektsioon has also monitored whether companies subject to financial supervision have the systems and organisation in place that would allow them to identify and apply international financial sanctions.
The Financial Intelligence Unit focuses on analysing and monitoring suspicions of individual instances of money laundering and acts on information received. The FIU also identifies breaches of international financial sanctions. The FIU has the right to receive the information it needs for its work from Finantsinspektsioon.
Both the Financial Supervision and Resolution Authority and the Financial Intelligence Unit have an important role in preventing the Estonian financial sector being abused for criminal ends and close mutual cooperation is of primary importance in this. The Financial Intelligence Unit became an independent institution on 1 January, and this made it necessary to sign a new and much more detailed agreement with Finantsinspektsioon to supplement the earlier one. The agreement covers the clearer organisation of cooperation and exchange of information, and also allows the two institutions to train each other on preventing money laundering and terrorist financing in the name of a more stable and transparent financial sector in Estonia.
