LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s financial regulator is investigating Barclays PLC for alleged failings in the bank’s anti-money laundering systems, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
The FCA, Britain’s financial sector regulator, last year called for an independent review of Barclays’ arrangements after noting numerous anti-money laundering incidents, the newspaper reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
FCA and Barclays declined to comment.
According to the daily, the FCA has written to heads of Barclays UK’s investment banking and retail and wealth management divisions as part of section 166 of its oversight tools, or “investigator review”. qualified persons”.
This process usually involves hiring an independent firm to produce reports, possibly with recommendations for improvement.
In recent years, the British authorities have tightened controls on the main banks of the country, many voices rising to denounce the place taken by London in the global movement of illicit funds.
Barclays rival bank NatWest was fined £265m (€299m) in December 2021 for failing to prevent nearly £400m from being laundered, in the first case money laundering charges brought by regulators against a UK bank.
Barclays will release its annual results on February 15, with investors likely to focus on its investment bank’s performance amid a senior management reshuffle in recent weeks.
The bank will also provide details of legal and regulatory matters in which it is involved.
(Reporting Sneha Bhowmik in Bangalore, Iain Withers and Lawrence White in London, with contributions from Rishabh Jaiswal in Bangalore; French version Augustin Turpin, editing by Kate Entringer)
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