{"id":2197343,"date":"2026-10-14T02:05:32","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T23:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2197343"},"modified":"2026-10-14T02:05:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T23:05:32","slug":"bank-of-america-fined-1-2bn-over-failing-to-stop-money-laundering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2197343","title":{"rendered":"Bank of America fined $1.2bn over failing to stop money laundering"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b893\/live\/c1765210-c764-11f1-b06d-fb50486dda65.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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\"BloombergBloomberg via Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Bank of America has been fined $1.2bn (\u00a3910m) for failing to detect potential money laundering and other illegal activity, the US Treasury Department said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The banking giant failed to report over $5bn in suspicious activity to the government, $1bn of which posed national security and illicit finance risks, the Treasury said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Those failures included not flagging transactions that possibly involved Chinese money laundering networks or trade-based laundering “with a substantial nexus to the southwest border”, according to the Treasury.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Our team is far along with and committed to completing the work required to address the issues raised by our regulators,” Bank of America told the BBC.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The announcement came less 24 hours before Bank of America was due to announce its quarterly earnings on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“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 emailed statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“We have already dedicated substantial personnel and resources to our ongoing remediation efforts, and those costs are in the current expense base,” it added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In announcing the fine, the third-largest the department has ever imposed, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said: “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.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Treasury said the bank overly relied on inquiries from outside parties like law enforcement and other financial institutions instead of its own internal controls.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This meant that it “effectively outsourced to third parties a substantial portion of its proactive detection and reporting obligations,” the department said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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As part of the settlement, Bank of America admitted that it “willfully violated” the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to maintain a compliant anti-money laundering programme, conduct required due diligence on foreign correspondent accounts and file suspicious activity reports, the Treasury said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The $1.2bn fine included penalties imposed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The OCC’s $750m fine marked the biggest penalty it has ever levied.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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OFAC said its settlement with the bank was tied to 475 apparent violations of sanctions programmes including those on Russia and Iran, narcotics, and global terrorism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The settlement amount of $11.6m reflected the determination that Bank of America’s apparent violations were “non-egregious”, OFAC said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cm3wvxy6n3z8o”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b893\/live\/c1765210-c764-11f1-b06d-fb50486dda65.jpg”] Bloomberg via Getty Images Bank of America has been fined $1.2bn (\u00a3910m) for failing to detect potential money laundering and other illegal activity, the US Treasury Department said on Tuesday. The banking giant failed to report over $5bn in suspicious activity to the government, $1bn of which posed national security and illicit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,226],"class_list":["post-2197343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2197343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2197343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2197343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2197343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}