BBC picked up on it too:
Monzo bank in money laundering rules investigation Monzo bank in money laundering rules investigation - BBC News
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That article also says theyâre being investigated for closing accounts⌠in much more unambiguous terms than the guardian one.
Are we sure theyâre not?
If they are, I very much doubt Monzo would be making a public song and dance about it. Thereâs probably an obligation to report this to shareholders but the public, unlikely. It doesnât look good - if it is true.
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I donât think it says that. It has the standard line that thereâs an active investigation over âpotential breaches of financial crime regulationsâ. The article then brings in closed accounts, but that seems to be speculation - thereâs no official word linking the two.
Of course, while I think the collective view is that the investigation is because Monzoâs financial crime regime wasnât strong enough, the opposite could also be true. Weâll just need to wait, I suppose.
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The BBC article is a rewrite of the Guardian one, where the writer has made a few changes to make it look like itâs all their own work. This is not uncommon, but in doing so they appear to have accidentally inserted the implication that the two things are linked when they changed the wording to âThis follows on the back ofâŚâ
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I think the articles are deliberately obtuse having researched alot about penalties etc. they are making mountains out of mole hills
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It doesnât actually say that, as others say. It does the classic trashy journalist trick of listing a temporal order and making it imply the things are related.
Itâs very common. I think I noticed it first in a daily mail article thatâs sub headline read something like âMuslim teenager found not guilty after telling jury he âwasnât used to drinkingâ. The angle of the article was very much âlook how unfair this is, courts are more lenient on Muslims nowâ. However, a little googling and it was pretty clear the not guilty verdict had nothing to do with the statement about not being used to drinking at all.
You see, you can say âthis thing follows this other thingâ and it can be technically true because one thing happened after the other. But you also know that your readers will read it as meaning âthis thing happened because of this other thingâ.
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Not sure if this is best thread to post this (feel free to move it).
Thought it was interesting as Simon is ex-Monzo so would have insight. (Hugh - also ex-Monzo, commented on the Twitter thread too).
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But then again, as those people worked at Monzo while these breaches were happening and then left before any investigation started - probably they are not the best people to ask about them.
Seems likely there were gaps in Monzoâs knowledge or understanding of regulation at that time.
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Yep of course, I just meant more generally - interesting to hear from people who worked in the industry on what they think of the regulations in general, as opposed to exactly what is going on just now. 
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âseems likelyâ based on whatâŚ?
AML laws in the UK are terribly archaic, and ineffective.
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Itâs likely that there were gaps in Monzoâs knowledge or understanding of regulation at that time, based on the fact Monzo is under investigation for AML breaches over that period.
From the next comment on that post
Further validating the above, itâs not just Monzo that has come under fire. From a non-paywalled article about Monzo:
The regulator is separately pursuing criminal money laundering charges against state-backed bank NatWest .
Well there is no get out clause for someone else having the same problem, but it should probably illustrate that this is not a problem unique to Monzo
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Also just to point out, an investigation is to determine whether there was wrongdoing, it doesnât mean anything is wrong yet.
If the FCA had evidence something actually isnât going the way it should, they would say so, instead of investigating.
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Well they donât just randomly start investigations. It means there were very likely some AML breaches and they are investigating the extent of them.
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Personally I think there are going to a lot of nuances around AML and designing easy to use sign up flows etcâŚ
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For clarity this is the 1 article they use to back up that shoddy claim 
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Iâm always surprised people donât know about number spoofing. Itâs been a well known thing for ages
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Yeah I always think the same, but then again I suppose people act differently under pressure and can panic, common sense goes out the window.
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Iâd love to know what they did that meant that Monzo wouldnât give it back.
Some of the cases Iâve seen, you look at what the person has done and you canât believe theyâve fallen for it but Monzo still refund them.
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