Metro Bank has been fined over £16.7m by the City watchdog for failing to properly check whether transactions were a financial crime risk.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said that Metro Bank had failed to adequately monitor over 60m transactions for money laundering risks between June 2016 and December 2020.
The transactions had a total value of £51bn, the FCA noted.
“Metro automated the monitoring of customer transactions for potential financial crime in June 2016. However, its system did not work as intended,” the regulator said.
“An error in how data was fed into the system meant transactions taking place on the same day an account was opened, and any further transactions until the account record was updated, were not monitored.”
Although junior staff members raised concerns in 2017 and 2018 about the adequacy of the checks, the problem was not completely fixed until December 2020, over four and a half years after the automated system was first implemented.
“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.
Metro Bank would have been fined £23.8m, but the lender qualified for a 30 per cent discount because it agreed to resolve the issue.
Daniel Frumkin, chief executive of Metro Bank, said: “The conclusion of these enquiries draws a line under this legacy issue, allowing the bank to move forward and fully focus on the future, building on the solid foundations it has already laid.”