Britain’s FCA fines Metro Bank £16 million for anti-money laundering failings

BRITAIN’S Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined Metro Bank £16 million (S$27.4 million), for failings in its anti-money laundering controls between June 2016 and December 2020.

The bank failed to have the right systems and controls to adequately monitor more than 60 million transactions, with a value of over £51 billion, for money laundering risks, the FCA said.

Since identifying the issues, Metro Bank has put in place processes to remediate the flaws, the watchdog said.

“Metro’s failings risked a gap being left in our defence against the criminal misuse of our financial system. Those failings went on for too long,” Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said in a statement.

The bank automated its systems for monitoring transactions in 2016, the FCA said, but the system did not work and transactions made on the same day an account was opened were not monitored.

Metro Bank said separately in a trading update for the third quarter that it still expects to meet its performance forecasts for the year.

The lender, which launched in 2010 to battle Britain’s big incumbents, has struggled in recent years, leading to a rescue deal last October, but has showed signs of a turnaround with a return to profit forecast for the fourth quarter. REUTERS

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