The UK Financial Conduct Authority has fined digital lender Monzo £21.1 million after finding the bank’s anti-money-laundering systems and controls fell “far short” of regulatory standards. The watchdog said the shortcomings allowed customers to open accounts using obviously implausible addresses, including Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street and even Monzo’s own headquarters. According to the FCA, the deficiencies spanned October 2018 to August 2020, when Monzo failed to design adequate onboarding, customer-risk assessment and transaction-monitoring checks. In August 2020 the regulator barred the bank from taking on new high-risk customers, yet Monzo subsequently signed up more than 34,000 such clients between August 2020 and June 2022, breaching the order. Monzo, whose customer base expanded from roughly 600,000 in 2018 to 5.8 million in 2022, said the issues are historical and that it has made “substantial improvements” to its controls. Chief Executive Officer TS Anil noted that the company has completed a wide-ranging remediation programme. The action follows a £29 million penalty against rival fintech Starling Bank last year, underscoring heightened regulatory scrutiny of fast-growing digital banks. Monzo reported pretax profit of £60.5 million for the year ended 31 March 2025, up from £13.9 million a year earlier.