U.S. Treasury fines Bank of America over $1.21 billion for AML failures

The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced more than $1.21 billion in penalties against Bank of America on October 13. The actions included a $1.2 billion FinCEN penalty and a $750 million civil penalty from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, according to Treasury. [1][2]

FinCEN said the bank failed to maintain an anti-money-laundering program meeting minimum requirements, conduct required due diligence for foreign correspondent accounts and file suspicious-activity reports. Treasury said more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions was not reported promptly. [1][2]

The OCC action concerned an ineffective Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering compliance program. Treasury said the bank's transaction-monitoring system failed to properly monitor trillions of dollars in transactions and produced large numbers of late suspicious-activity reports involving billions of dollars. [1]

Bank of America agreed to settle potential civil liability with the Office of Foreign Assets Control over 475 apparent violations of multiple sanctions programs. Treasury said technical and human errors allowed payments through blocked banks and permitted designated individuals to make payments or withdraw funds. [1]

The resolution requires a third-party lookback to identify and report suspicious transactions that went undetected. It also requires an independent review of suspicious-activity monitoring, customer and foreign-correspondent due diligence, and the bank's data-governance framework. [1]