(Bloomberg) -- Metro Bank Holdings Plc was fined £16.7 million ($21.4 million) by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority for failing to adequately monitor billions of pounds worth of transactions for money laundering risks.
The lender implemented a new, automated system for monitoring transactions in 2016 but employees soon found that the technology wasn’t checking certain transactions at all, including those placed on the same day an account was opened, according to a statement. The system wasn’t fixed until four and a half years later - despite junior staffers raising the issue years earlier.
“Metro’s failings risked a gap being left in our defense against the criminal misuse of our financial system,” Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said in the statement. “Those failings went on for too long.”
Metro Bank’s shortcomings meant that more than 60 million transactions, valued at more than £51 billion, were not monitored. The company said it fully cooperated with the FCA’s inquiry and accepted the watchdog’s findings.
“The conclusion of these enquiries draws a line under this legacy issue, allowing the bank to move forward and fully focus on the future,” Metro Bank Chief Executive Officer Daniel Frumkin said in a separate statement.
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