Monzo fined $28 million by UK regulator for poor financial crime procedures.

(Webdesk) Britain’s financial regulator has fined digital bank Monzo 21 million pounds ($28.57 million) for poor financial crime protection, including accepting users who named landmarks such as Buckingham Palace as their location.

Monzo failed to maintain adequate controls to reduce the risk of financial crime as it developed fast, according to a statement released on Tuesday by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The regulator fined the company 21.1 million pounds for “inadequate anti-financial crime systems and controls” between October 2018 and August 2020.

Monzo CEO TS Anil stated in a statement that the issues “have been resolved and are firmly in the past” and that the company has subsequently made “substantial improvements” to its procedures. Monzo is devoted to preventing financial crimes, Anil.

Monzo, which launched in 2015, is one among a number of applications delivering financial services, known as “fintechs,” that have arisen in the UK in the recent decade.

Following a 2020 assessment, the FCA required Monzo to refrain from establishing new accounts for high-risk consumers. Nonetheless, “between August 2020 and June 2022, it repeatedly failed to comply with the terms of the requirement, including signing up over 34,000 high-risk customers,” according to the Financial Conduct Authority.

Customers applied for Monzo accounts using locations such as Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street, and Monzo’s own corporate address, according to FCA papers.

“Monzo onboarded customers on the basis of limited, and in some cases, obviously implausible information, such as customers using well-known London landmarks as an address,” said Therese Chambers, FCA joint executive director of enforcement and market supervision.

“This illustrates how lacking Monzo’s financial crime controls were.”

Other UK fintechs have raised regulatory concerns about their measures to combat financial fraud. Starling Bank was fined 29 million pounds by the FCA in 2024 after the regulator discovered that its anti-money laundering procedures and sanctions screening systems left the financial system “wide open to criminals”.

Monzo announced a substantial increase in yearly earnings in its most recent statistics, with pretax profit reaching 60.5 million pounds for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025, up from 13.9 million pounds the previous year. Anil said it was too early to discuss an IPO.