Voice-over: This episode is made possible with the help of EY, Mogelijk Real Estate Finance, Duna and Lepaya.
Jeroen: Welcome to an extra episode of the Leaders in Finance Podcast. I’m very happy you’re listening to us once again. Today, I have a very short episode for you, with Rikke-Louise Ørum Petersen, Executive Board Member of the Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism, also known as AMLA.
Thanks so much for taking the time, Rikke.
Rikke-Louise: Thank you for having me, also at the event today. I think it’s been really interesting. I’m very happy to be here.
Jeroen: That’s great to hear, because we’ve just come out of the Leaders in Finance AML Event 2026, and you were the last speaker. Literally twenty minutes ago, you got off stage.
First of all, you’ve been building AMLA with the team. How are things going? Is it easy? Is it difficult?
Rikke-Louise: It’s progressing. It’s not easy, I would say. When I started a year and a half ago, we were thirty people.
The demands and requests we received, whether to participate in events like this or to deliver on our mandates, cooperate and engage with national competent authorities, made it quite difficult to make ends meet, so to speak.
I think we’re moving towards a more stable organisation now. Of course, we’ve also had a lot of challenges with procurement, financial autonomy and building the whole governance structure within AMLA, which is also very important.
You shouldn’t underestimate the cultural change you have to drive in an organisation like this, where you bring together a lot of different people.
When recruiting, diversity has been very important to us. I’m not just talking about gender or representation from different member states, but also different backgrounds: public, private, mathematicians, lawyers and data scientists.
Jeroen: Are you managing to recruit everyone you need at the moment? How many people do you need in total?
Rikke-Louise: By the end of this year, the target is 230, and by the end of next year, it’s 400. The latest big recruitment round is taking place right now.
Of course, we’ve had to prioritise, as every start-up does, because resources are scarce. We haven’t yet been able to recruit all the different people and professions we ultimately want, but we started with the biggest groups.
Right now, we’re recruiting for our very important task of direct supervision, because recruitment takes quite a long time.
I think that also has to do with the fact that we’re quite an attractive employer. A lot of interested people are applying for the positions, so it’s a big task for HR and the interviewers to go through thousands of applications.
Jeroen: Looking at one aspect of diversity, are you getting enough people from private institutions, such as banks and other financial institutions, into your organisation?
Rikke-Louise: I think we’re getting quite a lot. I’m also quite impressed by people who really feel devoted to AMLA’s objective and want to make a complete career change.
Let’s be honest: coming from the private sector might also entail a bit of a pay cut, depending on your level. I’m not saying we don’t pay well, but I think that’s a dilemma between the public and private sectors.
What I find amazing is that we have some very experienced people from the private sector who think: “I’ve built up this enormous knowledge and expertise, and I really want to put it to use for society.” I think that’s great.
Of course, supervisors are also in high demand in our recruitment, but a combination is important.
Jeroen: Personally, does it feel like being a public entrepreneur, running this start-up, as you call it?
Rikke-Louise: Yes, it does.
Jeroen: Yes?
Rikke-Louise: Sometimes you don’t realise how much structure you have in an established organisation, whether public or private. That can sometimes hinder your agility a little, because you get stuck in certain ways of doing things.
But it’s also really difficult to navigate when you have nothing. We’ve needed a very entrepreneurial spirit from all our staff, because sometimes you have to do something outside your comfort zone simply because there’s nobody else to do it.
Jeroen: I can imagine it’s quite exciting to build something new. I wouldn’t say from scratch, because the Commission and others had already done a lot of work, but you’re still building something new. I can relate to that. Building things is always great.
Moving to a big topic, at least here in the Netherlands, is the discussion around rules-based versus risk-based approaches. Perhaps it’s a discussion across Europe, but that’s for you to judge.
First of all, is this a semantic discussion, or is there a real concern among financial institutions and national regulators that things might become more rules-based, because some countries take a more rules-based approach than others?
Rikke-Louise: I think we have to acknowledge that the concern is out there. At the Leaders in Finance event, there was also a question to DNB about this. I think Willem Schudel put it very nicely: in order to converge, you need some rules to converge around.
What’s really important to us is that the rules we’re making leave room for proportionality and a risk-based approach.
I don’t agree with stakeholders who think that being risk-based means you can’t ask for any data, because that would mean applying a rule. Of course, you need to apply some rules. But you also need to apply them intelligently and focus more enforcement where the risk is greater.
Jeroen: When it comes to challenges, one is running the start-up, as we’ve just discussed. But from a substantive perspective, what would you say are the biggest challenges?
Rikke-Louise: Very often, I hear: “AMLA will fix this. AMLA can do that.” I really appreciate that people have faith in the institution. I think they should.
But I also need to stress something I mentioned earlier: we can do nothing on our own. We’re not issuing our Level 2 and Level 3 mandates without the approval of the member states.
I won’t be able to carry out a single joint analysis if nobody wants to participate. The word “joint” is really important.
Jeroen: Are expectations too high, then?
Rikke-Louise: I don’t think expectations are too high, but I think they need to be a little more realistic about who does what and what AMLA’s role really is. It’s also about acknowledging that this is a shared responsibility and a shared response.
Jeroen: Ultimately, this should lead to one European approach, right? That’s the hope. It will take a long time. Building the European Union took a long time, and it’s still far from finished.
Rikke-Louise: And we’re still discussing it, right? Including competitiveness.
That’s also why I say we won’t have full convergence on 11 July next year. This will be ongoing work.
Will we see differences in how the rules are interpreted and how supervision is carried out? Most certainly.
But I feel a strong commitment and engagement from member states, whether national competent authorities or FIUs, to do this together. That’s decisive, because without that willingness, we won’t move anything forward.
Jeroen: Cooperation is everything.
We’ve learned quite a lot about the history of money laundering this morning, and I think it’s fair to say that the Americans have driven a lot of developments in this area.
With this growing Europeanisation of AML, could Europe now become the new standard for the world?
Rikke-Louise: It’s an ambition and one of our long-term goals. We want to be more than a standard setter in Europe; we want to be a global standard setter. Of course, reaching that goal will take time, but it’s a kind of North Star.
As we’ve discussed, we need one European approach because criminals don’t respect borders. They don’t respect borders within the EU either.
Recently, I was reminded of something you get so used to that you barely notice it anymore. An American girl stopped me at Stockholm airport because she couldn’t understand how she could go straight from the plane to the train station in Sweden.
It was because she’d already gone through the checks in Denmark. Being able to move from one country to another like that is amazing, but it also creates challenges when it comes to criminals. We need to bear that in mind.
We also need to remember that criminals won’t stay within the European perimeter. We need to engage globally, and that’s why we should also have a global ambition.
Jeroen: Last question. You joined the Leaders in Finance AML Event today and gave the closing keynote. I saw you taking notes. Was there anything particularly interesting, or something you learned or heard that you’ll take back to Frankfurt?
Rikke-Louise: I think Oliver’s remark about…
Jeroen: You’re referring to Oliver Bullough, right? The author of the recent book Everybody Loves Our Dollars?
Rikke-Louise: Yes. I didn’t even realise I was just using his first name!
His remark was about whether STRs, the reports sent to FIUs, are actually being read. I was perhaps a little provocative downstairs when I said I didn’t agree with that.
What I do agree with is that we’re not taking full advantage of the insights we get from those reports. We’re not using all the value of the information we’ve gathered. We need to do that better, and that’s one of our ambitions.
I think it’s important to present a slightly more nuanced picture.
A very important role for AMLA, and one reason why FIU cooperation is part of AMLA, is to raise the standard of how these reports are handled and bring greater convergence across Europe.
Jeroen: Great. Thank you so much, Rikke-Louise Ørum Petersen, Executive Board Member at AMLA, for being at the event today and for talking to me afterwards.
I’m very curious to see how AMLA develops and how you help shape it into the organisation it should become. It’s very exciting.
I hope to welcome you back at some point, here in Amsterdam or somewhere else where Leaders in Finance is discussing AML.
Thank you so much for taking the time, and safe travels home.
Rikke-Louise: Thanks.
Voice-over: You’ve been listening to Leaders in Finance. We hope you’ve enjoyed the episode and would love to hear from you. What’s on your mind? Who would you like to hear next?
Let us know in a review, send us an email or get in touch through our social channels. We’d greatly appreciate it.
Finally, we’d like to thank our partners for their ongoing support: EY, Mogelijk Real Estate Finance, Duna and Lepaya.
Don’t forget to check out everything else we do at leadersinfinance.nl. Thank you for listening.