Nationwide has been fined £44m for failing to do enough to combat financial crime.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued the penalty after criticising the building society's "inadequate" efforts at tackling offences such as money laundering.

The regulator said this included Nationwide having ineffective policies and procedures for monitoring personal current accounts.

The fine relates to failures during the period between October 2016 and July 2021.

The FCA said that in one "serious" case, the building society missed opportunities to spot how a customer was using current accounts to receive millions of pounds in fraudulent COVID furlough payments during the pandemic .

They were sent 24 payments totalling £27.3m over 13 months, including £26m deposited over eight day

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