LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has fined Starling Bank 29 million pounds (34.5 million euros) after identifying weaknesses in anti-money laundering controls and UK neobank sanctions checking systems dating back to 2017.
The measures taken by Starling to combat financial crime did not prevent it from repeatedly violating the obligation not to open accounts to high-risk clients, the regulator explained on Wednesday.
The neobank, which opened more than 54,000 accounts for 49,000 high-risk customers between September 2021 and November 2023 according to the FCA, discovered in 2023 that its automated sanctions filtering system was operating on the basis of an incomplete list of individuals subject to to financial sanctions since 2017.
Starling Bank fully accepts the FCA’s findings and apologizes, the company responded in a statement.
The bank, which saw its customer base increase to 3.6 million in 2023 from 43,000 in 2017, benefited from a 30% reduction in the fine due to its cooperation with the regulatory authority.
(Written by Prerna Bedi in Bangalore and Sinead Cruise in London, Bertrand De Meyer, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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