EU readies fraud action plan
The EU is pushing to finish a continent‑wide action plan against digital fraud before the summer, signaling faster regulatory movement on payments and fintech safety (amlintelligence.com). That timeline raises the likelihood of binding rules for merchants, wallets and banks within months — not years — which could reshape compliance roadmaps for fintechs operating in Europe (amlintelligence.com).
Magnus Brunner, the EU Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration, announced the Commission would present the action plan at the Global Fraud Summit in Vienna on March 16, 2026. (amlintelligence.com) The Commission ran a public consultation on the initiative from January 23 to February 13, 2026, collecting stakeholder input that the Commission said would feed into the final measures. (digitalpolicyalert.org) Drafts circulated alongside the consultation explicitly flag widening information‑sharing between national Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) and private‑sector firms as a central tool to detect and disrupt industrialised online fraud. (amlintelligence.com) That action‑plan work builds on a provisional political agreement reached on November 27, 2025, between the Council and Parliament to tighten payment‑services rules, increase transparency and strengthen consumer protections. (consilium.europa.eu) The November 2025 deal also includes new liability measures that make large platforms such as Meta and TikTok directly liable for certain financial scams, a first for EU legislation on online fraud. (politico.eu) The Anti‑Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) became operational in early 2026 and, together with the new AML package, creates a fresh EU enforcement architecture that the Commission says will sit alongside the forthcoming fraud action plan. (bankinghub.eu)
