The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined Metro Bank £16.6 million for failing to implement adequate systems to monitor money laundering risks, impacting over 60 million transactions valued at more than £51 billion.
The lapses, occurring between June 2016 and December 2020, reveal serious deficiencies in Metro’s financial crime prevention controls.
Metro Bank introduced automated transaction monitoring in June 2016, but due to data input errors, the system failed to flag transactions occurring on the same day accounts were opened and further transactions until account records were updated. Concerns raised by junior staff in 2017 and 2018 went unaddressed, delaying identification of the issue.
The bank implemented a partial fix in July 2019, but a consistent verification mechanism wasn’t established until December 2020—over four years after the monitoring system’s launch. In response to these issues, Metro Bank has since updated its processes to remediate the flaws in its monitoring system.
Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, highlighted the risks posed by Metro Bank’s prolonged oversight gap. “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,” Chambers stated.
Metro Bank’s fine serves as a reminder of the need for robust financial crime prevention measures, as the FCA continues to prioritize enforcement against inadequate anti-money laundering controls.