The digital bank Monzo has been fined £21m over weak financial crime controls, after it allowed customers to register for accounts with “implausible” home addresses including 10 Downing Street, Buckingham Palace and Monzo’s own headquarters.
The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) penalty follows a lengthy investigation, which discovered that Monzo’s internal controls failed to keep up with a rise in customers, which ballooned from 600,000 in 2018 to more than 5.8 million in 2022.
