About Sepblac

Sepblac is Spain’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and AML/CFT Supervisory Authority. This dual role provides strong synergies between both functions.

Sepblac reports to the Commission for the Prevention of Money Laundering and Monetary Infractions, chaired by the Secretary of State for the Economy.

Sepblac as Financial Intelligence Unit

Sepblac conducts both operational and strategic analysis. Sepblac receives STRs and other information required by national legislation and disseminates the results of its analysis to competent judicial, law enforcement or administrative authorities, as appropriate. Sepblac’s strategic analysis, aimed at identifying patterns, tendencies and typologies, determines possible threats and vulnerabilities and informs AML/CFT policies.

Sepblac is legally empowered to require from all reporting entities all information and documentation needed to perform its functions. Failure to comply with this legal obligation constitutes an offence.

In the exercise of its financial intelligence and analysis functions, Sepblac acts with operational autonomy and independence. In particular, the analysis and dissemination of specific cases is performed on strictly technical criteria bases.

Sepblac is a founding member of the Egmont Group (http://www.egmontgroup.org). Sepblac exchanges information with foreign FIUs in accordance with the Egmont Group principles or under the terms of the relevant memorandum of understanding. Sepblac gives a clear priority to exchanging information with international counterparts as promptly and effectively as possible, both spontaneously and upon request.

Sepblac as AML/CFT Supervisory Authority

Sepblac exercises its supervisory functions in the framework of a risk-based Supervisory Strategy that includes a wide range of both off-site and on-site actions.

Sepblac’s supervisory resources are allocated on a risk-sensitive basis, focusing on those economic sectors, obliged subjects and activities that present a higher ML/FT risk. To this purpose Sepblac conducts sector risk assessments combining, firstly, an analysis of the inherent ML/FT risk of each sector and, secondly, a general evaluation of existing internal control procedures, obtaining residual / supervisory risk. In this framework, the same methodology is applied to obliged subjects: analysis of the inherent risk for each entity, followed by an evaluation of its internal controls, which allows to estimate supervisory risk, on the bases of which the supervisory cycle is defined.

In assessing supervisory risk, Sepblac strongly relies on information obtained as Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) from (i) strategic analysis of ML/FT risks and (ii) operational analysis of STRs filed by financial institutions.