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05/01/2017
To better counter the financing of terrorism and increase transparency, a proposal for a directive amending Directive 2015/849 has been adopted. This proposal is aimed, inter alia, at (i) extending the list of obliged entities to virtual currency exchange platforms and custodian wallet providers, (ii) reducing the thresholds below which reduced Customer Due Diligence (CDD) may be applied in relation to certain pre-paid instruments, (iii) enabling FIUs and competent authorities to have access to information on accounts by requiring Member States to put in place automated centralised mechanisms for this purpose, such as centralised registries, (iv) setting up a minimum set of requirements to be applied by all Members States for the application of enhanced CDD when dealing with persons established in high-risk third countries and (v) granting public access to certain beneficial ownership information (in this context, the 25% shareholding threshold used to identify beneficial owners of corporate entities is lowered to 10% with respect to certain limited types of entities which are exposed to a specific risk of money laundering or tax evasion).