Barclays Bank has been fined £42m for two separate cases of financial crime risk failures by the Financial Conduct Authority.
In the primary case, the City watchdog says, Barclays didn’t examine that it had gathered ample data to know the cash laundering risk earlier than opening a shopper cash account for UK-based cash supervisor WealthTek.
The regulator provides: “One easy examine it may have carried out was to have a look at the financial companies register earlier than opening the account.
“Had it carried out so, it might have seen that WealthTek was not permitted by the Financial Conduct Authority to carry shopper cash.”
The watchdog provides that with out the appropriate details about WealthTek and the way the account could be used, “there was an elevated risk of misappropriation of shopper cash or cash laundering”.
Clients went on to deposit £34m into the account. Barclays has agreed to make a voluntary cost of £6.3m to WealthTek’s shoppers who’ve a shortfall within the cash they’ve been in a position to reclaim.
Last December, the regulator individually charged WealthTek’s principal associate, John Dance, with 9 prison offences, together with a number of counts of fraud and cash laundering.
In the second case, the FCA fined Barclays Bank £39.3m for “failing to adequately handle cash laundering dangers” related to offering banking companies to agency Stunt & Co.
The watchdog says that Barclays didn’t collect sufficient data at the beginning of the connection or perform correct ongoing monitoring.
In the house of simply over a yr, Stunt & Co acquired £46.8m from Fowler Oldfield, a multimillion-pound cash laundering operation.
“Barclays didn’t correctly take into account the cash laundering dangers related to the agency even after receiving data from regulation enforcement about suspected cash laundering by Fowler Oldfield, and after studying that the police had raided each companies,” the watchdog says.
It factors out: “Barclays solely carried out a assessment of its publicity to Fowler Oldfield by its prospects, together with Stunt & Co, after it realized of the Financial Conduct Authority’s choice to prosecute NatWest over their relationship with Fowler Oldfield.
“By offering ongoing banking companies to Stunt & Co, Barclays facilitated the motion of funds linked to financial crime.”
FCA joint government director of enforcement and market oversight Therese Chambers says: “The penalties of poor financial crime controls are very actual – they permit criminals to launder the proceeds of their crimes, they usually enable fraudsters to defraud customers.
“Banks must take accountability and act promptly, significantly when apparent dangers are delivered to their consideration.
“In the primary of those circumstances, Barclays secured a major discount in its advantageous by its intensive cooperation with our investigation and thru making a voluntary cost to affected customers at our request.”
The watchdog provides that Barclays continues to spend money on “a major remediation programme” to spice up its anti-money laundering management framework.
Last week, digital financial institution Monzo was fined £21m for comparable failings by the City watchdog.
