FCA censures CACEIS UK and secures £31.7m payment for WealthTek clients
Custodian financial-crime and client-asset teams must act on Register checks, verify client-money permissions and resolve account alerts or face FCA censure and client restitution
Change
On 25 June 2026, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) censured CACEIS UK and secured an agreed voluntary ex-gratia payment of £31,714,068 for distribution to WealthTek clients, for failures in its financial crime controls as WealthTek's sub-custodian.
Why it matters
The FCA found that CACEIS UK, as sub-custodian, checked the Financial Services Register on three occasions showing WealthTek was not authorised to hold certain client assets but did not act sufficiently, did not identify that WealthTek could not hold client money, opened client accounts for WealthTek, and failed to promptly review and resolve alerts raised by its monitoring system. In place of a £23,091,000 penalty, CACEIS agreed a £31,714,068 voluntary payment given its co-operation; £30.9m goes to WealthTek's administrators and £800,000 to the FSCS. The action forms part of over £57m the FCA has secured for WealthTek clients, alongside enforcement against Barclays Bank UK and Sapia Partners.
Implications
- — Client-asset and financial-crime teams at custodian and sub-custodian banks must act on adverse Financial Services Register findings about a client's permissions, rather than record the check and proceed — the FCA treated repeated unactioned Register checks as a censurable control failure.
- — Custody onboarding teams must verify that a client is authorised to hold client money and client assets before opening accounts for it to use — opening accounts despite a permissions mismatch was a basis for the FCA's censure and restitution outcome.
- — Transaction-monitoring teams at custodians must promptly review and resolve alerts raised by their systems rather than leave them open — the FCA cited unresolved alerts as a control failure carrying censure and enforced client compensation.
Who is affected
- — Client-asset and financial-crime teams at custodian and sub-custodian banks
- — Custody onboarding teams at asset-servicing banks
- — Transaction-monitoring teams at custodians