AML and CTF law and regulation in Slovakia

Act No. 297/2008 Coll. on protection against the legalisation of proceeds from criminal activity and protection against the financing of terrorism, adopted on 2 July 2008, as amended (the “AML Act”).

The 4^th AML Directive was implemented in full, the 5_^th AML Directive was partially implemented.

The Financial Intelligence Unit (the “FIU”) of the National Criminal Agency is the main AML/CTF supervisory authority. The FIU has the authority to collect, store, investigate, analyse and disclose financial intelligence investigations carried out under the terms and procedures of the AML Act.

Another authority authorised to monitor compliance with the key obligations under the AML Act in certain sectors is the Slovak National Bank. 

In addition to the obliged entities (persons) under the 4^th and 5^th AML Directives, the Slovak AML Act also considers the trustees and providers of postal services as obliged persons. 

The KYC requirements in Slovakia follow the requirements of the 4^th and 5^th AML Directives.

Subjects registered with the Slovak Commercial registry (subject to certain exceptions) are obliged to register their UBOs with the registry. Subjects commencing business in the public (state) sector are obliged to register their UBOs with the Registry of Public Sector Partners and disclose the UBOs.

Yes, the legislation in various sectors, such as the banking sector, allows for the digital onboarding of customers, provided that the requirements for customer identification and customer verification under the AML Act are observed.  

The main obligations of the reporting entities under the AML Act follow the 4^th and 5^th AML Directives. These include customer due diligence (CDD), the collection of information and documents and their storage, an assessment of the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing, and the disclosure of information on suspicious operations, transactions and customers. The Slovak UBO definition considers as the UBO any individual with an indirect shareholding interest (of at least 25%) of any kind, i.e. it is necessary to follow the shareholding structure up to the very last individual.

Yes, a National Risk Assessment for Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (“NRA”) was included in the AML Act dated 15 March 2018. The NRA provides a strategy and useful measures for monitoring and limiting the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing. 

The main measures include stopping suspicious financial operations and in cases with the suspicion of a crime commitment and freezing funds, other financial assets and economic resources. 

Money laundering and terrorist financing are criminalised under the Slovak Criminal Code as standalone crimes. The penalties for money laundering and financing terrorism provided in the Slovak Criminal Code are imprisonment from two (or five in the case of financing terrorism) to 20 years, depending on the severity of the crime. 

Legal entities can be held liable for the both crimes. The available penalties include forfeiture of property and dissolution of the legal entity. 

The AML Act provides a range of sanctions for non-compliance with the key requirements, such as customer checks, record-keeping, and suspicious transaction reporting. Fines and penalties vary depending on the type of infringement, the type of infringer (an individual or entity, or the type of entity—banks, insurers, etc.), whether its initial, repeated or systematic, and can reach as high as EUR 1 million  (EUR 5 million in the case of financial institutions).

The number of prosecutions, convictions and administrative sanctions has increased in recent years.