New rules will come into force from July 10, 2027. They will cover all European Union countries. The “community” authorities want to use this to fight money laundering. The new law will allow verification of all real buyers and impose additional obligations on companies organizing sales.
Identity verification will be mandatory
The EU AMLR regulation, aimed at combating money laundering, will introduce guidelines similar to those already required of financial institutions. It concerns verifying all people making purchases of expensive goods. It will be necessary to provide the buyer’s data as well as the actual beneficiary of the transaction. Until now, when buying expensive watches, jewelry, artworks, or even real estate, it was not always clear who the money really belonged to.
New obligations will also be imposed on companies that organize the sale of luxury goods. For many such enterprises this will involve implementing internal procedures necessary for collecting the required information about the real buyer of a specific item, as well as tools to verify that the provided data is accurate.
The EU officials want to address gaps that arose due to various regulations in different “community” countries. With the regulation, all transactions involving the sale of expensive items will be verified in the same way regardless of the country.
Greater control for cash and online transactions
The AMLR regulation will set limits that allow the purchase of luxury goods without verifying the buyer’s data. The threshold will depend on how the buyer pays for the item. For a transfer, the limit will be 10,000 euros, i.e., over 42,000 PLN. From the moment the new regulations come into force, every such transaction will require buyer verification. Until now, this was not required when payment was made by bank transfer, which already contains basic account holder data. From July 10, 2027, that will not be enough.
Verification will also apply to people paying in cash. The limit in that case will be much lower, at 3,000 euros, i.e., just under 12.7 thousand PLN.
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