The National Council of the Slovak Republic approves Act No. 123/2022 Coll.
On 17 March 2022, the National Council of the Slovak Republic approved Act No. 123/2022 Coll. on the Central Register of Accounts which transposes the AML V Directive and Directive No 2019/1153, both which look to simplify rules and facilitate the use of financial and other information for the prevention, detection, investigation and/or prosecution of certain criminal offenses, while repealing Council Decision 2000/642 /JHA.
The establishment of the Central Register of Accounts (CRA) as a centralised automated mechanism will allow authorized public authorities (e.g. financial intelligence units, law enforcement agencies, criminal courts, intelligence services) to immediately identify owners and disponents of all types of accounts (such as businesses, current, savings, term, deposit, administrators, property securities accounts, etc.) including safe deposit boxes. The CRA shall start to operate on 1 January 2023.
The administrator and operator of the CRA is the Ministry of Finance SR. For financial institutions, the National Bank of Slovakia and the Central Securities Depository will list details of accounts that have been opened, changed, or closed. The data will be input daily and 5 years retrospectively. The data retention period is also 5 years. Data transmission details shall be further specified in a legal regulation issued by the Ministry of Finance by 1 July 2022.
As a consequence of this legislation, the cash and securities accounts details, including client identification data, will have to be reported daily by custodians to the CRA as of 1 January 2023.
