Four major European professional organizations are urging EU regulators to scale back proposed anti-money-laundering requirements, warning that excessive bureaucracy and compliance costs could threaten smaller accounting, legal and tax-advisory firms without significantly improving the fight against financial crime.
The groups have called on the European Commission and the European Union’s newly established Anti-Money Laundering Authority, or AMLA, to reconsider proposed regulatory technical standards that they argue place too much emphasis on collecting information and documenting compliance rather than identifying suspicious financial activity.
The organizations—Accountancy Europe, CFE Tax Advisers Europe, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), and the European Tax Adviser Federation (ETAF)—represent accountants, auditors, lawyers and tax advisers across the bloc.
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In a joint letter, they warned that increasingly complex requirements for risk assessments, customer due diligence, monitoring and recordkeeping could force smaller professional firms to invest heavily in compliance technology and specialized personnel.
Unlike banks, accounting and legal practices generally don't maintain customer deposit accounts, process payments or continuously monitor financial transactions. Applying banking-style compliance requirements to these businesses could therefore create obligations that are disproportionate or practically impossible to fulfill, the groups argued.
The concerns highlight a growing tension between Brussels' efforts to strengthen financial oversight and the regulatory burden facing Europe's smaller businesses.
The organizations identified six priorities for revising the proposed framework, including reducing unnecessary data collection, tailoring requirements to different professions, protecting professional judgment and ensuring that compliance obligations remain proportionate to actual risks.
They also called for realistic implementation deadlines and an initial supervisory approach emphasizing guidance rather than immediate penalties for firms struggling to adapt.
Professional networks comprising independent businesses present another challenge, the groups said, because they often lack centralized management structures capable of enforcing uniform compliance policies.
The organizations argue that effective anti-money-laundering controls depend heavily on professionals' understanding of their clients and business activities.
Overly standardized procedures, they warned, could turn risk assessments into box-ticking exercises, diverting resources from detecting genuinely suspicious transactions.
While acknowledging that AMLA has already modified some initial proposals, the groups maintain that significant implementation problems remain unresolved.
