The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined the online bank Monzo the equivalent of more than $28 million for failing to properly collect customer information and protect against financial crimes. The move is the latest in a series of efforts by British authorities to combat chronic money laundering and other crimes that plague the country’s financial sector.
In a statement Monday, the FCA said Monzo had failed to follow rules that prevent it “from opening accounts for high-risk customers” amidst its rapid growth. The FCA said Monzo’s failures stretched into 2022, when its customer base had grown to 5.8 million from around 600,000 in 2018. ”Monzo failed to design, implement, and maintain adequate customer onboarding, customer risk assessment, and transaction monitoring systems to mitigate the risk of financial crime,” the FCA said in its statement.