Bank of America hit with $1.2B penalty over money laundering failures

Key Points:

• The Treasury Department imposed approximately $1.21 billion in penalties on Bank of America for longstanding anti-money laundering failures and U.S. sanctions violations, marking the largest penalty ever by the OCC and the third-largest by FinCEN.
• Regulators found the bank failed to adequately investigate trillions of dollars in potentially suspicious transactions, including over $5 billion in late-reported suspicious activity involving national security risks such as Chinese money laundering networks.
• Bank of America admitted to willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act by inadequately maintaining its anti-money laundering program and failing to file timely suspicious activity reports, despite repeated warnings and a 2023 cease-and-desist order.
• The OFAC settlement addresses 475 apparent violations of U.S. sanctions programs related to countries like Iran, Russia, and Belarus, involving processing payments through sanctioned banks and failing to update sanctions watchlists promptly.
• As part of the enforcement action, Bank of America must enhance its anti-money laundering controls, cooperate with an independent third-party review, improve employee training, and comply with additional sanctions requirements.