The FCA has fined Starling Bank just under £29m for financial crime failings related to its financial sanctions screening.

According to the regulator the bank also repeatedly breached a requirement not to open accounts for high-risk customers.

Starling would have been fined almost £41m, but agreed to resolve the breaches and tighten its controls so qualified for a 30% discount on the fine.

When the FCA reviewed financial crime controls at challenger banks in 2021, it identified serious concerns with the anti-money laundering and sanctions framework in place at Starling. The bank agreed to a requirement restricting it from opening new accounts for high-risk customers until this improved.

According to the regulator, Starling failed to comply and opened over 54,000 accounts for 49,000 high-risk customers between September 2021 and November 2023.

In January 2023, Starling became aware that its automated screening system had, since 2017, only been screening customers against a fraction of the full list of those subject to financial sanctions. A subsequent internal review identified systemic issues in its financial sanctions framework.

Starling has since reported multiple potential breaches of financial sanctions, and has established programmes to remediate the breaches and enhance its wider financial crime control framework.

Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said: “Starling’s financial sanction screening controls were shockingly lax. It left the financial system wide open to criminals and those subject to sanctions. It compounded this by failing to properly comply with FCA requirements it had agreed to, which were put in place to lower the risk of Starling facilitating financial crime.”

The FCA said its approach to Starling is an example of how it is improving the pace of its enforcement investigations. The case took 14 months from opening to achieving an outcome, in comparison to an average of 42 months for cases closed in 2023/24.