The regulator found "serious and persistent gaps" in the bank's AML controls
The Financial Conduct Authority has imposed a fine of £107.79 million on Santander UK for failure to properly oversee and manage its anti-money laundering (AML) systems, which significantly impacted the account oversight of more than half a million business customers.
The regulator found “serious and persistent gaps” in the bank’s AML controls between December 31, 2012, and October 18, 2017, affecting over 560,000 business banking customers.
Santander has not disputed the FCA’s findings and agreed to settle, which means it has qualified for a 30% discount. Without the discount, the financial penalty would have reached almost £154 million.
The FCA said Santander had ineffective systems to adequately verify the information provided by customers about the business they would be doing. It added that the firm also failed to properly monitor the money customers had told them would be going through their accounts compared with what actually was being deposited.
“Santander’s poor management of their anti-money laundering systems and their inadequate attempts to address the problems created a prolonged and severe risk of money laundering and financial crime,” Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said. “As part of our commitment to prevent and reduce financial crime, we continue to take action against firms which fail to operate proper anti-money laundering controls.”
The FCA cited a case where a new customer opened an account as a small translations business with expected monthly deposits of £5,000. Within six months, it was receiving millions in deposits, and swiftly transferring the money to separate accounts. Although the account was recommended for closure by the bank’s own AML team in March 2014, poor processes and structures meant that this was not acted upon until September 2015. As a result, the customer continued to receive and transfer millions of pounds through the account.
Santander agreed to a request from law enforcement to keep the account open in September 2015. However, it failed to keep track of this request and the account remained open until the FCA wrote to Santander in December 2016.
The FCA identified several other business banking accounts which Santander failed to manage correctly, leaving the bank open to serious money laundering risk. There were also examples of the bank failing to promptly deal with red flags associated with suspicious activity, such as automated monitoring alerts. These failures led to more than £298 million passing through the bank before it closed the accounts.
The FCA noted that Santander knew that there were significant weaknesses in its AML systems and controls and began a program of improvements in 2013. While these changes resulted in some improvements, Santander concluded that the changes did not adequately address the underlying weaknesses and, in 2017, decided to implement a comprehensive restructuring of its processes and systems.
Santander UK continues to invest in its ongoing transformation and remediation program, the regulator said.
As part of its role to protect consumers and the market, the regulator has repeatedly stepped in and penalised firms for poor management of their AML systems. For example, it has fined Standard Chartered Bank £102.2 million, HSBC Bank plc £63.9 million, and its investigation led to NatWest being fined £264.8 million.
