At last week’s eIDAS summit 2026, hosted by Bitkom, I was invited to deliver a talk on new developments in anti-money laundering measures in the EU and the role of digital trust in this ecosystem. Here are my key thoughts.
As anti-money laundering (AML) regulations enter a new European phase, KYC processes are being redefined as strategic opportunities to improve the customer experience, reduce operational costs, and modernize digital infrastructure, not only as compliance obligations. The combination of the new EU AML framework, centralized supervision, AI-driven monitoring, and eIDAS 2.0 digital identity capabilities is creating a new standard for onboarding.
Challenges of the current AML and KYC Models
Europe continues to face a significant money laundering challenge. Estimates suggest that around 2 -5% of global GDP is laundered annually, while only a small fraction is ultimately recovered. At the same time, existing control systems are expensive, fragmented, and often inefficient.
In addition, compliance teams are overwhelmed by alerts that lead nowhere. In some cases, up to 95% of warnings are false positives. Static thresholds, manual reviews, and disconnected national systems create high costs with limited impact. This fragmented structure has also made cross-border compliance unnecessarily complex. Each country has historically interpreted AML requirements differently, forcing banks operating internationally to duplicate onboarding and verification processes market by market.
The new EU AML Package
To address these challenges, the EU launched a new AML framework introducing a harmonized and technology-enabled model built around three pillars.
The first pillar is AMLA, the new Anti-Money Laundering Authority headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany. AMLA has direct supervisory powers over selected financial institutions and can impose sanctions without relying solely on national regulators. By 2028, the authority is expected to directly supervise around 40 high-priority institutions based on size, risk exposure, and cross-border activity.
The second pillar is a unified AML regulation that applies consistently across member states. Instead of 27 interpretations of core requirements, institutions will increasingly operate under one common framework.
The third pillar is implementation through directives that expand AML scope into new sectors and ensure practical adoption at the country level.
For banks, this means one thing above all: AML compliance is becoming more centralized, more data-driven, and more enforceable.
But what does this mean in terms of technology? Traditional AML controls often rely on fixed rules such as transaction thresholds or isolated customer screening. The new model moves toward dynamic monitoring of transaction flows, network relationships, and suspicious patterns using AI and graph analytics. This enables institutions and regulators to detect behavior rather than merely flag amounts.
Expected outcomes include:
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Significant reduction in false positives.
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Much faster suspicious activity reporting workflows.
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Significant productivity gains for compliance teams.
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Lower cost of investigation and manual review.
For banks currently allocating large teams to repetitive alert handling, the efficiency potential is substantial.
Why eIDAS 2.0 and EUDI wallets Matter for KYC Onboarding
While eIDAS is not formally part of the AML package, it is highly relevant as the preferred trust framework for digital identity and onboarding. This matters because many banks still operate multiple parallel KYC methods: video identification, document uploads, branch verification, local workflows, and legacy manual checks. The result is customer friction, operational complexity, and inconsistent assurance levels. eIDAS 2.0 and the European Digital Identity (EUDI) wallet now introduce a standardized trust layer that can simplify onboarding across markets.
👉 Learn more about digital identity wallets in our FAQ
With wallet-based identity verification, institutions can access validated credentials, trusted attributes, and secure customer consent flows in a reusable framework. That opens new possibilities such as faster digital onboarding with verified government-backed identity data, immediate status checks for revoked or expired credentials, qualified electronic signatures during account opening, cross-border reuse of verified identities, and stronger fraud prevention for fully digital banks. In practical terms, identity becomes portable, trustworthy, and easier to integrate.
One of the biggest inefficiencies in today's environment is the need for repeated onboarding. This means a customer verified in one market often needs to repeat identity checks in another due to local processes or legal differences. Under a harmonized framework supported by digital identity wallets, verified customer identities can become reusable across jurisdictions. For pan-European banks, this could dramatically simplify expansion, onboarding consistency, and customer conversion rates. It also supports a stronger brand proposition. Customers increasingly expect secure and modern onboarding journeys. Compliance maturity is becoming part of customer trust and market perception.
Institutions that redesign onboarding around a digital identity and trust can expect benefits in three areas:
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Lower compliance operating cost.
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Better customer acquisition and onboarding conversion.
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Stronger resilience against fraud and regulatory risk.
This is one of the rare moments where regulation and ROI align. The benefits are clear, but what’s next?
How to get started
The AML transformation is already underway. Key legislative milestones have passed, supervisory structures are active, and implementation timelines are approaching quickly. Banks that have not yet completed readiness assessments, gap analyses, or architecture planning are falling behind schedule.
The most effective next steps include:
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Assess current KYC and AML operating models
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Identify onboarding friction and duplication
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Build a wallet-ready identity strategy
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Strengthen data foundations
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Select trusted ecosystem partners
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Prioritize scalable API-based integration models
Your trust partner of choice
Swisscom Trust Services is a certified trust service provider with a proven track record in Finance and is one of the few that can cover the jurisdictions of the European Union and Switzerland. Working with Swisscom, you can start implementing existing frictionless identification methods while preparing for the upcoming identity wallet ecosystem.
Want to know more about eID agility and wallet readiness? Get our new whitepaper for free here.
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