Santander UK fined £108m over anti-money laundering failings

The FCA says Santander’s failures led to more than £298m passing through the bank before it closed the accounts. Photograph: Lewis Storey/Getty Images

Santander UK has been fined more than £100m after an investigation by the British financial watchdog found “serious and persistent gaps” in its money laundering controls, resulting in hundreds of millions of pounds of suspicious transactions through customer accounts.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) imposed the £107.7m penalty after an investigation found that between December 2012 and October 2017 the bank failed to “properly oversee and manage” the controls that affected the oversight of more than 560,000 business customers.