The bank qualified for a 30% discount (from almost £154m) because it did not dispute the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) findings and agreed to settle. The FCA found the UK part of the bank failed to properly oversee and manage its AML systems between 31 December 2012 and 18 October 2017. It had ineffective systems to verify the information provided by customers about the business they would be doing, and failed to properly monitor the money customers told them would be going through their accounts compared with what was being deposited.
In one case, 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. The FCA also found that, while the account was recommended for closure by the bank’s own AML team in March 2014, poor processes and structures meant this was not acted on until September 2015, by which time millions of pounds had been transferred through the account.
The FCA found several other accounts where there was a serious money laundering risk, as well as examples of the bank failing to deal promptly with ‘red flags’ associated with suspicious activity.
Mark Steward, an executive director at the FCA, said Santander’s ‘poor management… created a prolonged and severe risk of money laundering and financial crime’.
The FCA has previously fined Standard Chartered Bank £102m in 2019 for AML breaches in two high-risk areas. Last December, it fined HSBC nearly £64m for serious weaknesses in monitoring systems over an eight-year period, and an FCA investigation led to NatWest being fined £264m in the same month at Southwark Crown Court for three AML offences.
