The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network imposed a USD 1.2 billion penalty on Bank of America after the bank admitted willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act through failures in its anti-money laundering program, suspicious activity reporting and due diligence for foreign correspondent accounts. The deficiencies caused the bank to miss or delay reporting more than USD 5 billion in suspicious transactions, including over USD 1 billion involving national security and priority illicit finance risks. FinCEN found that Bank of America’s transaction monitoring system was poorly calibrated and allowed suspicious activity to remain uninvestigated for extended periods, despite internal testing and warnings. The bank relied materially on law enforcement inquiries and referrals from other financial institutions instead of its own controls, while customer due diligence failed to address extensive third-party payments and red flags involving possible narcotics proceeds, Chinese money laundering networks, fraud and trade-based money laundering linked to the southwest border. Its simplified due diligence for certain foreign branches and affiliates also failed to capture sufficient information about correspondent account activity and risks. Bank of America must commission a lookback covering activity from January 2022 until remediation of its monitoring deficiencies, with the final report due no later than December 2028. Independent reviews will also assess suspicious activity monitoring, customer and foreign correspondent account due diligence, and anti-money laundering data governance. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency concurrently imposed a USD 750 million penalty, which FinCEN will credit against its assessment, leaving USD 450 million payable to the Treasury. The Office of Foreign Assets Control separately reached an USD 11.6 million settlement covering 475 apparent sanctions violations.
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network imposes USD 1.2 billion penalty on Bank of America for willful anti-money laundering failures
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network imposed a USD 1.2 billion penalty on Bank of America for willful anti-money laundering failures that delayed or prevented reporting of more than USD 5 billion in suspicious transactions. The bank admitted violations involving its monitoring, customer due diligence and foreign correspondent account controls, and must complete a lookback and independent reviews. A concurrent USD 750 million Office of the Comptroller of the Currency penalty will be credited against FinCEN’s assessment, while the Office of Foreign Assets Control reached a separate USD 11.6 million sanctions settlement.