UK Fines Monzo £21 Million Over Anti-Money Laundering Lapses

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority fined Monzo Bank Ltd. £21 million ($29 million) over failures tied to the digital lender’s systems for stopping financial crime.

Between 2018 and 2022 — a period during which Monzo’s customer base soared roughly tenfold to 5.8 million users — the watchdog found that Monzo did not obtain sufficient information about customers during the onboarding process, the FCA said in a statement.

For instance, the company ultimately found cases where customers used foreign addresses with UK postcodes or “obviously implausible” addresses like those of famous British landmarks, the agency said.

“This illustrates how lacking ...