Italy’s Bruna Szego has been selected as the chair of the European Union’s new anti-money laundering (AML) watchdog following a three-hour hearing and debate before the European Parliament’s economy and justice committees on Monday.
Despite facing strong competition from Germany’s Marcus Pleyer and the Netherlands’ Jan Reinder De Carpentier, Szego secured a majority vote. Notably, she lacked the backing of the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest group in Parliament, and the Greens, both of whom had supported Pleyer, the former chairman of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Szego, the only female candidate, is an experienced anti-money laundering expert who currently leads the AML supervision and regulation unit at the Bank of Italy. She previously headed the Bank’s regulation and macroprudential analysis directorate and serves on the European Banking Authority’s (EBA) anti-money laundering standing committee. One of her key strengths is her ability to connect macroprudential and AML risks.
The newly established Anti Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) will be based in Frankfurt and aims to provide greater independence from national regulators, allowing it to act when national watchdogs fail. The AMLA will begin direct supervision of high-risk financial entities in January 2028, as new EU anti-money laundering rules come into effect six months earlier.
