Barclays customers are now only able to pay up to £20,000 in cash each year into their personal accounts following the introduction of an annual limit on deposits in a bid to deter money laundering.  

The £20,000 limit applies to all personal accounts a customer holds with Barclays, including joint accounts and any children’s savings accounts, meaning that if you have more than one personal account, the total amount of cash you can pay in across all of them is £20,000.

The cap affects all in-person deposits over the counter and through self-service systems.

However, the restrictions do not extend to business customers, and there is no limit to the amount of cash customers may pay into business accounts.

The limit will reset in January of each year.

The rule change will make it harder for criminals to launder money and make it easier for the bank to detect suspicious activity at its branches, according to the bank.

“We take financial crime and our responsibility to prevent money laundering seriously,” said a spokesperson for Barclays, in a statement in The Telegraph.

“We have contacted customers to let them know that from July we are making some changes to the amount of cash customers can deposit into their Barclays accounts. We have set the limit at an amount that will allow us to better identify suspicious activity, while still ensuring our customers have access to cash,” he continued.

The new cash deposit limit is the lowest of any high street bank, with many having no limit on in-person cash deposits. The only other banks with an annual limit for cash deposits at their branches are Santander and NatWest.

The move comes after criticism from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) that financial services firms in Britain are not doing enough to identify and tackle illegal activity.

In an FCA report into cash-based money laundering published in April 2023, the regulator found that there had been an increase in abuse of cash deposit services, with some criminals carrying out multiple deposits of £20,000 each day to launder large amounts of cash quickly.

The report urged UK banks to reduce cash deposit limits, subject to their customer arrangements, to below the existing £20,000 per transaction.

“The limit of £20,000 per transaction, with unlimited transactions per day, could not be justified for legitimate businesses or personal customers and presented a material risk for money laundering,” the FCA concluded.

The FCA proposed that there should be a limit for personal accounts of £1,000 per 24-hour period (which is the minimum amount law enforcement are allowed to seize under the Proceeds of Crime Act) and £10,000 over a 12-month period. 

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