UK watchdog hits Bank of London with new client freeze
Lossmaking fintech was fined £2mn for misleading regulators about its capital position
The Bank of London has agreed with the UK financial watchdog to stop taking on new customers in the latest setback for the lossmaking fintech, which is still reeling from being fined for fabricating documents to conceal its financial health.
The lender, which received a $1.1bn valuation in 2021, said it had formalised an agreement with the Financial Conduct Authority in which it “voluntarily paused new customer onboarding to make enhancements to our financial crime prevention controls”.
The block on new clients has been in place since August 2025, the financial technology company said on its website. But it was formalised on March 18 when the watchdog published a notice on its official register saying TBOL “must not, without the prior written consent of the FCA, onboard any new clients”.
The formal restriction on signing up new clients came only days before the company was fined £2mn by the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority for breaching more than a dozen rules in its attempt to mislead regulators about its capital position.
Former senior managers of the fintech, which was licensed as a UK clearing bank in 2023, were found to have knowingly misled the regulator over its true capital position.
The PRA said on Tuesday that the breaches occurred between October 2021 and May 2024. The bank was at the time run by its founder Anthony Watson, a former Barclays executive.
TBOL aims to make money from licensing its technology to corporate clients so they can offer regulated banking services under their own brands. The bank’s net loss widened in 2024 to almost £24mn, which almost doubled from a deficit of £12.4mn the prior year, according to its latest published accounts.
FCA supervisors often use voluntary restrictions as an alternative or a precursor to enforcement action. The watchdog does not announce such voluntary restrictions, but it records them on its register, making them a more discreet tool.
The watchdog declined to comment on whether it was investigating TBOL over its financial crime controls, its capital misstatements or other matters.
The fintech’s holding company had former Goldman Sachs heavyweight Harvey Schwartz and Lord Peter Mandelson on its board during the period when its capital was misstated. The PRA did not accuse the two men of wrongdoing.
They both stepped down in October 2024 after TBOL was thrust into the spotlight a month earlier by a winding-up order from UK tax authorities over unpaid debt, which was subsequently withdrawn. Watson also stepped down in September 2024.
The PRA said it would have fined TBOL £12mn but that such a fine would have resulted in serious financial hardship for the fintech, and so the penalty was reduced to £2mn.
EY, the bank’s auditors since 2023, said it was “wholly reliant upon financial support for funding from its parent” and there were “significant doubts about going concern”.
The fintech’s parent company last year renamed itself from Bank of London Group Holdings to Oplyse Holdings — the first word is a Danish term meaning to enlighten. The bank’s latest accounts said Oplyse injected £24.5mn into the bank last year.
Oplyse’s accounts for 2024 are “overdue” according to Companies House, which said they should have been filed by the end of last year. In 2023, Oplyse reported a loss of £47mn.
TBOL said in a notice posted recently on its website that the restriction agreed with the FCA to stop signing up new clients would not affect existing customer accounts. “All services continue to operate as normal,” it said.