Monzo told to comply with banking rules

DIGITAL bank Monzo has been ordered to make urgent changes to its business after “repeatedly” failing customers who were closing their accounts.

The Competition and Markets Authority has served Monzo with “legally binding directions enforceable in court”, ordering it to improve the way it handles departing customers.

The app-only lender must ensure that every customer who closes their accounts receives copies of their transaction history. The order comes after the watchdog found over 13,000 departing customers were not sent this data between May 2021 and March 2022.

Banks are required to make this information readily available because it can affect customers’ ability to access financial products such as mortgages.

“It’s simply not good enough for a major bank like Monzo to repeatedly fail its customers by not following clear rules,” said Adam Land, senior director at the CMA.” Mr Land added: “We have ordered the bank to make changes which mean customers should not face this issue in the future.”

Monzo blamed a coding error which meant customers who had used the Current Account Switching Service (CASS), a free-to-use service that makes it easier for account holders to switch to another bank, were not sent the data they were entitled to. Monzo reported the glitch to the CMA earlier this year.

Monzo said: “As soon as we were aware of this issue, we fixed it on the same day and contacted all impacted customers as soon as possible.”