On 5 January 2022, the European Banking Authority (the
"EBA") has issued an opinion on the scale and impact of
de-risking in the European Union ("EU")
and the steps competent authorities should take to tackle
unwarranted de-risking (the
"Opinion").
In the EBA's Opinion, de-risking refers to decisions taken
by financial institutions to refuse to enter into, or to terminate,
business relationships with individual customers or categories of
customers associated with higher money laundering
("ML") or terrorist financing
("TF") risk, or to refuse to carry out
higher ML/TF risk transactions.
Interestingly, the EBA provides in the Opinion that although
decisions not to provide services to customers in certain risk
categories may be legitimate and in line with Article 14(4) of
Directive (EU) 2015/849 (the 4th Anti-Money
Laundering Directive), de-risking of entire categories of
customers, without due consideration of individual customers'
risk profiles, can be
