Metro Bank fined £5.38m for regulatory reporting failures

22nd Dec 2021 07:49

(Sharecast News) - Metro Bank has been fined £5.38m by the Bank of England for failures in its regulatory reporting following accounting inaccuracies in 2019.
The Prudential Regulation Authority said incorrect risk weightings in some of its commercial loan portfolios meant the bank had misrepresented its regulatory capital position in regulatory returns between May 2016 and when they were corrected in January 2019.

PRA chief executive Sam Woods said: "We expect firms to invest appropriate and adequate resources to ensure that they submit accurate regulatory returns.

"In this case, Metro Bank failed to meet the standards of governance and controls expected of it, resulting in today's enforcement action."

The PRA accused Metro Bank of pursuing a rapid growth plan without adequate investment in regulatory reporting governance and controls in the years leading up to 2019.

Metro Bank stated it had agreed to the resolution of the issue with the PRA and that it had since made "significant improvements" and "substantial investment" in its regulatory reporting processes and controls.

The lender did not provide an update on a separate investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority.