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Barclays Fined £42 Million over Serious Anti-Money Laundering Control Failures

Anti Money Laundering

Business Honor - Barclays Fined £42M over AML Failures in Two High-Risk Cases

Business Honor
16 July, 2025

Barclays penalised for weak checks, enabling fraud and money laundering through client accounts.

Barclays was fined £42 million by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK's financial regulator for significant shortcomings in its handling of money laundering threats. Two important cases were stressed by the FCA. At the Begining, Barclays created a customer account for WealthTek which is a wealth management company.

However, the FCA did not allow WealthTek to keep client funds. Basic checks like confirming WealthTek's listing on the Financial Services Register were not performed by the bank. According to the FCA, a straightforward background check may have prevented this error. Barclays has consequently consented to pay £6.3 million to assist in paying customers who suffered financial losses as a result of WealthTek's demise.

This was one of the biggest and most important fraud cases the FCA has looked into. In the second instance, Barclays supplied services to Stunt & Co., which was awarded about £47 million by Fowler Oldfield, another company. One of the largest money laundering schemes in the United Kingdom has been connected to that company.

Despite police raids and warnings from law enforcement, Barclays neglected to do a thorough risk assessment. It did not learn enough about the company's operations or funding sources and it kept classifying the partnership as "low risk." Barclays has also previously faced penalties for having insufficient controls over financial crime. Due to these problems, it was already fined in 2015 and 2022.

According to the FCA, Barclays failed to take the proper actions, which allowed suspicious funds to flow through the financial system. In order to combat financial crime, the bank stated that it has collaborated with investigators and is currently making investments in more strong security.