Barclays Faces £42 Million FCA Penalty Over Oversight Failures Linked to Financial Crime

Barclays Bank has been fined £42 million by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for control failures tied to its relationships with two clients—Stunt & Co and WealthTek—both of which have been linked to financial crime investigations.

The majority of the penalty, £39.3 million, relates to Barclays' provision of services to Stunt & Co, a former gold bullion client that received £46.8 million from Fowler Oldfield, an entity central to a large-scale money laundering scheme. The FCA stated that Barclays failed to conduct adequate due diligence at the outset of the relationship and did not carry out appropriate ongoing monitoring, even after law enforcement actions and regulatory alerts involving Stunt & Co and Fowler Oldfield.

Despite mounting red flags, Barclays continued servicing the account, only initiating a review after being informed of the FCA’s decision to prosecute another institution, NatWest, over its links to Fowler Oldfield. Stunt & Co has since entered liquidation.

The remaining portion of the fine is linked to Barclays' onboarding of WealthTek, a wealth management firm whose former principal partner, John Dance, was charged in December 2024 with multiple criminal offences, including fraud and money laundering exceeding £64 million. The FCA noted that Barclays could have identified that WealthTek was not authorised to hold client funds by consulting the Financial Services Register before opening the account.

According to the regulator, Barclays' continued provision of banking services enabled the movement of potentially illicit funds. The bank stated it had conducted an internal review, reported its findings to the FCA, and cooperated fully with the investigations. However, the FCA indicated that Barclays had previously been fined on two separate occasions—once in 2022 for compliance failures involving the collapsed payment firm Premier FX, and earlier in 2015 for inadequate financial crime controls tied to high-risk ultra-wealthy clients.

While the FCA acknowledged that Barclays' cooperation led to a reduced fine and voluntary payments to affected clients in the WealthTek case, it emphasized that the bank’s failures in client due diligence and monitoring had exposed the financial system to significant criminal risk. Barclays, in response, reiterated that no breach of money laundering regulations was found in the Stunt & Co matter and that internal controls have since been enhanced.