The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined Metro Bank £16.6m for failing to properly monitor over 60 million transactions for money laundering risks.
This fine originates from issues in 2016. At the time, Metro Bank automated the monitoring of customer transactions for potential financial crime, however, the system was found to not work as intended.
Due to the way the data was entered into the system, transactions that took place on the same day an account was opened and any further transactions until the account record was updated, were not monitored.
Therefore, between June 2016 and December 2020, the bank wasn’t able to adequately monitor over 60 million transactions, which had a value of over £51bn.
The bank also failed to act quickly to solve the issue when it was reported by junior staff, who highlighted that data between 2017 and 2018 was not monitored. Metro Bank only put in place a fix in July 2019, though this didn’t check that all relevant transactions were being fed into the monitoring system until December 2020.
According to the FCA, Metro Bank would have faced a fine of £23.8m, but the bank agreed to resolve issues and qualified for a 30% discount under the UK watchdog’s processes.
Looking forward, the FCA has said that it will continue to supervise the bank to ensure that the correct systems are in place.
Therese Chambers, Joint Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight, commented: “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.”
Recently, Metro Bank has been working alongside Meta to fight against fraud, an issue that the UK has felt the full force of this year.
Last month, Meta announced that it expanded an information-sharing partnership with Metro Bank and NatWest Group, two banks that took part in a six-month pilot with the technology company.
