The Starling Bank banking app on a smartphone.Adrian Dennis | AFP via Getty ImagesU.K. financial regulators hit British digital lender Starling Bank with a £29 million ($38.5 million) fine over failings related to its financial crime prevention systems.In a statement on Wednesday, London’s Financial Conduct Authority said it had fined Starling “for financial crime failings related to its financial sanctions screening.” Starling also repeatedly breached a requirement not to open accounts for high-risk customers, the FCA said.In response to the FCA penalty, Starling said it was sorry for the failings outlined by the regulator and that it had completed detailed screening and an in-depth back book review of customer accounts.”I would like to apologise for the failings outlined by the FCA and to provide reassurance that we have invested heavily to put things right, including strengthening our board governance and capabilities,” David Sproul, chairman of Starling Bank, said in a statement Wednesday.”We want to assure our customers and employees that these are historic issues. We have learned the lessons of this investigation and are confident that these changes and the strength of our franchise put us in a strong position to continue executing our strategy of safe, sustainable growth, supported by a robust risk management and control framework,” he added.Starling, one of the U.K.’s most popular online-only challenger banks, has been widely viewed as a potential IPO candidate in the coming year or so. The startup previously signaled plans to go public, but has moved back its expected timing from an earlier targeted an IPO as early as 2023.The FCA said in a statement that, as Starling expanded from 43,000 customers in 2017 to 3.6 million in 2023, the bank’s measures to tackle …
