Bank of America Fined $1.2 Billion Over Money Laundering Failings
BBC Homepage
Skip to content
Accessibility Help
Your account
Home
News
...
Bank of America has been fined $1.2 billion (£910 million) for failing to detect potential money laundering and other illegal activities, according to the US Treasury Department.
The banking giant failed to report over $5 billion in suspicious activity to the government, $1 billion of which posed national security and illicit finance risks. These failures included not flagging transactions potentially linked to Chinese money laundering networks or trade-based laundering with ties to the southwest border, according to the Treasury.
"Our team is far along with and committed to completing the work required to address the issues raised by our regulators," Bank of America stated to the BBC.
The announcement came less than 24 hours before Bank of America was set to release its quarterly earnings on Wednesday.
"Our third-quarter results will include a non-tax-deductible charge of $1.2 billion impacting net income by approximately 17 cents per share," the bank said in an email. "We have already dedicated substantial personnel and resources to our ongoing remediation efforts, and those costs are in the current expense base," they added.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the fine, the third-largest the department has ever imposed, stating: "When a bank of this size fails to meet its anti-money laundering and sanctions obligations, the consequences extend far beyond its own walls, exposing the entire US financial system to significant illicit finance risks."
The Treasury reported that Bank of America overly relied on inquiries from outside parties, like law enforcement and other financial institutions, instead of its own internal controls. This meant it "effectively outsourced to third parties a substantial portion of its proactive detection and reporting obligations."
As part of the settlement, Bank of America admitted to "willfully violating" the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to maintain a compliant anti-money laundering program, conduct required due diligence on foreign correspondent accounts, and file suspicious activity reports.
The $1.2 billion fine included penalties from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The OCC's fine of $750 million marked the largest penalty it has ever levied.
OFAC stated its settlement with the bank was linked to 475 apparent violations of sanctions programs, including those on Russia and Iran, narcotics, and global terrorism. The $11.6 million settlement amount reflected the determination that Bank of America's apparent violations were "non-egregious."