FCA fines Santander UK GBP 107.7M for repeated anti-money laundering failures

The U.K.’s FCA has fined Santander UK Plc GBP 107,793,300 after it found serious and persistent gaps in its anti-money laundering controls, affecting its Business Banking customers. Between 31 December 2012 and 18 October 2017, Santander failed to properly oversee and manage its AML systems, which significantly impacted the account oversight of more than 560,000 business customers, the FCA said in a statement. Santander had ineffective systems to adequately verify the information provided by customers about the business they would be doing. 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. Mark Steward, Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight at the FCA, said: "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." Reference Link