Almost a quarter of finance professional surveyed backed the capital, ahead of Madrid and Luxembourg
The city won 24.5pc of the vote, beating rivals Madrid, Luxembourg, Frankfurt and Paris in a poll of more than 2,200 finance professionals by specialist news service AML Intelligence.
Madrid came second with 20pc of the vote.
Luxembourg and Frankfurt got around 13pc, with Vienna taking 10.5. Paris, Rome and Vilnius, which have all launched public campaigns for the seat, took less than 10pc.
The poll comes a week after the EU published a formal call for applications to host the new agency. Applications close on November 10.
This is the first year that MEPs will have a say on where an EU agency is located. Parliamentarians have been severely critical, in the recent past, of Ireland’s reputation on tax and shell companies.
The anti-money laundering authority (AMLA) is the mainstay of the bloc’s new rulebook to fight financial crime, which is in the final stages of negotiations in Brussels.
Staff at the agency are expected to number between 250 and 400, the European Commission says.
Any country wanting to host the agency must ensure it can “fully execute” its tasks, recruit qualified staff, train people on financial crimes and enable cooperation with EU bodies. It should also have a good track record on fighting money laundering “in order to avoid reputational risks”, the call for proposals said.
The city must have suitable office space, “adequate accommodation” and public transport for international conferences, “adequate” schools for children of agency staff, “appropriate” jobs, benefits and healthcare for families of staff, and must ensure “geographical balance” – meaning it shouldn’t already host too many EU agencies.
Six years ago, Dublin narrowly lost out to Paris in a race to secure the EU’s banking regulator post-Brexit after dropping its bid to host the bloc’s medicines agency, which Amsterdam won.
Finance Minister Michael McGrath made an informal bid for the agency earlier this year, saying Ireland was the “ideal location” given its significant financial services sector, highly skilled labour force and strong relations with its EU partners.
The agency will be responsible for directly supervising a small number of the bloc’s riskiest financial firms, with the power to order on-site inspections and issue fines.
It would oversee a range of new transparency rules on the beneficial ownership of assets, crypto traders, crowdfunding platforms, fintechs and golden visa schemes.
