Starling Bank has been fined £29 million by the City regulator for “shockingly lax” controls that left the financial system “wide open to criminals and those subject to sanctions”.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said the digital bank failed to “design, implement, and maintain adequate systems and controls to mitigate financial crime risks”.
The bank’s financial controls “failed to keep pace with its growth” as it went from its first account in July 2016 to having 3.6 million customers by 2023, the regulator said.
Serious concerns with the bank’s anti-money laundering and financial sanctions systems were first identified during a regulatory review of fast-growing “challenger” banks in 2021. As a result, Starling agreed not to open any new accounts for high-risk customers pending improvement of