The Financial Conduct Authority has fined Metro Bank £16.7 million for failing to check transaction data for possible money laundering.
According to the city watchdog, between June 2016 and December 2020, Metro did not have the right systems and controls in place to adequately monitor more than 60 million transactions, worth more than £51 billion, for money laundering risks.
In June 2016, the bank automated the monitoring of customer transactions for potential financial crime, but its systems did not work as intended.
An error in the way data was entered into the system caused transactions that occurred on the same day an account was opened, and all transactions until the account record was updated, to go unaudited.
The FCA reported that junior staff had raised concerns that some transaction data was not monitored in 2017 and 2018, but these did not lead to the problem being identified or resolved.
Even after the issue was resolved in July 2019, Metro Bank did not have a mechanism to consistently check that all relevant transactions were entered into the monitoring system until December 2020, more than four years after the system was implemented.
Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market surveillance, said: “Metro’s failings risked leaving a gap in our defenses against the criminal abuse of our financial system. These shortcomings have gone on for too long.”
Since the bank identified the issues with its transaction monitoring system in April 2019, it has put processes in place to resolve these issues, according to the FCA.
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