By PAUL O’DONOGHUE, Senior Correspondent
THE FCA (Financial Conduct Authority), the UK’s fincrime watchdog, has highlighted the biggest fines it handed out in 2025.
These were:
- Nationwide Building Society: £44 million for inadequate anti-financial crime systems and controls
- Barclays: £42 million for failings in financial crime risk management.
- Monzo: £21 million for repeated breaches when onboarding high-risk customers
Other significant penalties the FCA handed out include:
- The London Metal Exchange: £9.5 million for breaches of market conduct obligations (MiFID RTS rules)
- Mako Financial Markets Partnership: £1.7 million for breaches of conduct and financial crime risk-related rules
- James Edward Staley – £1.1 million, an individual fine for breaches of conduct rules
- Sigma Broking Limited – £1.1 million for for transaction-reporting and conduct rule breaches
The organization said that poor financial crime controls “allow criminals to launder the proceeds of their crimes and fraudsters to harm consumers”.
“Firms must take responsibility and act promptly, especially when risks are brought to their attention,” it said.
The total fines the FCA has handed out is £124 million ($167 million) for the year to date.
A full list of the penalties the watchdog published in 2025 is available [HERE]. The FCA is set to take an even more central role in financial crime oversight, assuming AML monitoring responsibility from many industry bodies.
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