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The competence of the HFIU as a supervisory authority

The swift and effective international communication has become one of the top priorities due to the cross-border nature of today's criminal activities and the IT-based operation of international financial systems. Several international organizations and bodies have been set up or gained competence to promote the fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism.

One of these bodies is the Egmont Group (www.egmontgroup.org), an international organization covering financial intelligence units, which aims to promote, guarantee and improve the communication between FIUs. The legal guarantees of disseminating confidential information handled by FIUs with other counterpart authorities are laid down in the Hungarian AML/CFT Act and in other secrecy laws as well. In order to facilitate the secured exchange of information, a protected IT system, the Egmont Secure Web (ESW) has been established, which offers a worldwide internet-based connection among the member FIUs of Egmont Group. The Hungarian Financial Intelligence Unit, being member of Egmont Group since March 2008, is authorized to contact each foreign FIU according to the regulations of the AML/CFT Act. Accordingly confidential information can be forwarded to foreign counterpart FIUs if the legal conditions are met. Communication concerning the implementation of fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism belongs to the international tasks of the HFIU. The HFIU cooperates closely with international organizations and bodies such as FATF (www.fatf-gafi.org), Moneyval (www.coe.int/moneyval) operating as the regional body of FATF, Egmont Group, some policy committees of the EU, OECD, UN, etc. This cooperation contributes to secure the transparency and to monitor the effectiveness of the AML/CFT system.

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