Bank of Italy Reinforces Sanctions Screening Across Funds and Crypto Transfers

The Bank of Italy has issued a supervisory communication reminding regulated intermediaries to ensure that their controls can identify customers, relationships and transactions connected to persons subject to European Union and national restrictive measures.

The communication, published on 7 September 2026, focuses on the implementation of EBA Guidelines 2024/15. These guidelines address controls applied to customers and to transfers of funds and crypto-assets, including the configuration and calibration of screening systems.

The Bank of Italy is not introducing a new sanctions regime. Instead, it is reinforcing expectations around the effectiveness of existing sanctions controls and drawing attention to whether screening systems are appropriately designed for the risks they are intended to detect.

For compliance teams, the communication highlights practical areas such as data quality, matching logic, system calibration, treatment of customer and transaction information, and the extension of sanctions controls to crypto-asset transfers.

The supervisory message is important because sanctions compliance failures can arise not only from missing a name on a list, but also from weaknesses in how screening technology is configured, tuned and embedded into operational processes.

Sources

Banca d’Italia, “Communication on restrictive measures”, 7 September 2026.