Bank of America fined $1.21 billion over anti-money-laundering failures
publishers 75articles 90first reported 13 Oct, 20:24 UTCdeveloping since 14 Oct · 11 editions
Bank of America has been fined more than $1.21 billion by U.S. regulators for failures in its anti-money-laundering and sanctions compliance programs.
The Treasury Department said the bank failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious activity to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, including over $1 billion involving national security-related and other priority illicit-finance risks. Regulators said some transactions showed indications of Chinese money-laundering networks, fraud and potential trade-based money laundering.
According to a FinCEN consent order, much of the suspected Chinese network activity involved customers claiming to operate logistics or electronics businesses whose transaction patterns appeared inconsistent with legitimate commercial activity. Regulators also accused the bank of relying too heavily on inquiries from law enforcement and other financial institutions instead of its own controls.
FinCEN imposed a $1.2 billion penalty, with credit for a $750 million civil penalty levied by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The OCC said the bank had failed to address shortcomings identified in a 2024 cease-and-desist order. The settlement requires an independent review of past transactions and the reporting of previously undetected suspicious activity.
Bank of America said it has invested billions of dollars and assigned thousands of employees to financial-crime compliance. The bank will record a non-tax-deductible $1.2 billion charge, reducing third-quarter net income by about 17 cents per share.
HOW THIS STORY WAS MADE
Written from 8 articles, 4 with the publisher's own text; 8 independent newsrooms once syndicated copies count as one; this version written 54 h after the record first saw the story; the editor kept it as written.
- Publishers
- 75
- Source articles
- 90
- Given to the writer
- 8, 4 with the article's own text
- Independent newsrooms
- 8
- This version written
- 54 h after the record first saw the story
- Second model (editor)
- kept as written
- Publication gate
- passed
- Human review
- none
WHAT THE EDITOR DID
The second model checked the writer's draft against the same sources and published it as written.
Written by a language model from the sources above, then checked by a second model that may only cut, attribute or correct. How it works →