Starling Bank Fined £29 Million for 'Shockingly Lax' Risk Checks.

Starling Bank has been fined £29 million ($38.5 million) by regulators for having inadequate controls around risky customers. Despite agreeing to restrict services for high-risk clients in 2021, the bank opened over 54,000 accounts for 49,000 such customers between September 2021 and November 2023. The bank's automated screening system was found to have only been checking customers against a fraction of the full financial sanctions list since 2017. Starling Bank has accepted the findings and has made improvements to its controls and governance. [Extracted from the article]