Monzo has been ordered by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to review the way it informs departing customers of their historic financial transactions.

The action comes after Monzo breached the Retail Banking Market Investigation Order between May 2021 and March 2022.

This Order sets out that every customer must receive copies of their transaction history when they close their account, which acts as evidence if they choose to apply for a loan or mortgage elsewhere.

Monzo informed the CMA it had failed to send transaction histories to more than 13,000 customers, despite reporting a similar breach last year. The digital bank has since contacted all affected customers to offer them a copy of their transaction history.

As a result, the CMA has issued legally binding directions requiring Monzo to make sure this doesn’t happen again, and to review its procedures with an independent body. The directions are enforceable in court if the bank fails to comply with them.

Monzo has already set out several new changes it has made, including the introduction of new alerts to warn staff when the system fails to issue transaction histories to customers, monitoring cases to ensure departing customers receive their transaction history, as well as developing new procedures to ensure the Order is complied with.

Senior director at the CMA, Adam Land, commented: “It’s simply not good enough for a major bank like Monzo to repeatedly fail its customers by not following clear rules. Having a record of your financial transactions can act as important evidence needed to secure a loan or mortgage – so Monzo’s failure to provide these put an unnecessary obstacle in the way of thousands of customers.

“We have ordered the bank to make changes which mean customers should not face this issue in the future. We’ll be watching to make sure proper procedure is followed.”

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