Regulators show their teeth – financial services fines in 2025
UK watchdogs sharpened their sword in 2025 and slapped a handful of financial services firms with hefty fines and a thorough dressing down.
In just under a week alone in July, the Financial Conduct Authority and Bank of England handed out £74.9m worth of fines to a trio of financial services giants.
But it was no member of this three that topped the list for the largest fine.
Here’s a handful of the biggest fines to financial services in 2025.
Covid fraud hits Nationwide
Building society giant Nationwide won the unfavourable title of highest watchdog fine for a financial services firm this year.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) hit Debbie Crosbie’s mutual with a £44m blow after it missed opportunities to identify fraudulent Covid furlough payments.
Nationwide also blasted for “ineffective systems” which did not keep “up-to-date due diligence and risk assessments” on personal current accounts.
The mutual failed to identify a number of customers using their personal accounts for business activity, marking a major breach of terms.
Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: “Nationwide failed to get a proper grip of the financial crime risks lurking within its customer base.
“It took too long to address its flawed systems and weak controls, meaning red flags were missed with serious consequences.”
Barclays blunders on ‘one simple check’
The City watchdog slapped Barclays with a combined £42m in July for separate instances that exposed a lapse in the bank’s financial crime risk management.
Barclays was scorned for opening a client money account for wealth management firm WealthTek, which the FCA said “one simple check” to the Financial Services register would have shown the firm was not permitted to hold client money.
In a separate instance included in the fine, the regulator slammed Barclays for its mismanagement of banking services to Stunt & Co. – a precious metals firm that received £46.8m from a money laundering operation Fowler Oldifeld in just over a year.
The FCA said Barclays only reviewed its exposure to Fowler Oldfield after it learned of the regulator’s decision to prosecute Natwest over its ties. Natwest was slapped with a £264.8m fine for anti-money laundering failures in 2021.
Barclays was able to reduce its fine in one of the cases after reaching an early settlement.
Chambers said: “Banks need to take responsibility and act promptly, particularly when obvious risks are brought to their attention.”
Monzo opens accounts for Buck Pal and No.10
Third on the ranking was fintech darling Monzo, which was a part of the trio fined in July as it stared down a £21m hit.
Between August 2020 and June 2022, Monzo signed up over 34,000 high risk customers, a review by the FCA found.
But the bigger concern came as Monzo onboarded customers on the basis of “limited, and in some cases, obviously plausible information” including those using Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street and Monzo’s own office an address.
The neobank’s customer base increased almost tenfold from 2018 to 2022 as the neobank notched 5.8 million customers, but the FCA said it failed to keep the pace of its crime control with growth.
Chambers said: “[Banks] must have the systems in place to prevent the flow of ill-gotten gains into the financial system. Monzo fell far short of what we, and society, expect.”
Bank of England’s unprecedented fine
The third member of the July trio, Mastercard’s Vocalink was fined £12m for ineffective risk management framework, combined with weakness in its controls.
The payment systems firm designs, builds and operates core infrastructure for the UK and other markets.
The root cause of the non-compliance was linked to Vocalink’s failure to have in place a “sufficiently integrated risk management framework”.
Sarah Breeden, deputy governor for financial stability, said: “Vocalink fell short of its obligation to have adequate risk management and governance arrangements when responding to the Bank’s direction. Its failure to comply with that Direction in full has resulted in a significant fine.”
The Bank of England added Vocalink had failed to escalate key risks and information to senior committees undermining its “ability to fully comply with the direction”.
This marked the first time the Bank has fined a financial market infrastructure firm.
Metal Exchange’s poor staffing triggers fine
The London Metal Exchange (LME) was in the first batch of fines for the year with a £9.2m hit.
The City watchdog reprimanded the FCA for volatile pricing in its 3-month nickel futures contract.
During Asian traidng hours, where the trades were most volatile, only junior trading operations staff were on duty, who were not trained to recognise anything other than error trades or rogue algorithms as a potential cause for a disorderly market.
This meant decisions regarding market orderliness, which could only be taken by designated senior managers, failed to be properly escalated.
Steve Smart, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA said: “London’s metal markets are of vital importance to the UK and global economy. We expect controls that match their significance.
“The LME should have been better prepared to address the serious risks posed by extreme volatility.”