Bank of America Hit With Record $1.2B Penalty for “Egregious” BSA/AML Failures

Bank of America has been fined $1.2 billion for “deficient and ineffective” anti‑money laundering controls and “egregious and continued” violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, according to the U.S. Treasury and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

The penalty includes a record‑setting $750 million civil money penalty from the OCC — the largest in the agency’s history — and forms part of more than $1.21 billion in enforcement actions announced by the Treasury. Regulators found that the nation’s second‑largest bank failed to properly monitor trillions of dollars in transactions, allowing more than $5 billion in suspicious activity to go unreported or reported too late to be useful to investigators. Much of the unreported activity involved national‑security‑related risks, including Chinese money‑laundering networks and illicit finance tied to the U.S. southwest border.

The OCC said Bank of America committed in 2024 to fix longstanding BSA deficiencies but continued to exhibit widespread breakdowns in internal controls. Examiners found that the bank’s BSA/AML program lacked adequate staffing, expertise, training, and effective transaction‑monitoring systems. The bank filed large numbers of late or inaccurate suspicious activity reports and failed for years to escalate potentially suspicious activity for review. The OCC stated that these failures “threaten U.S. national and economic security.” Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). OCC Imposes $750 Million Assessment Against Bank of America for Deficient BSA/AML Compliance | OCC

“The bank’s poor response to its BSA deficiencies is unacceptable,” said Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould. “The second‑largest bank’s egregious and continued BSA violations warrant the OCC imposing its largest CMP ever assessed against a bank.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent added that even the biggest financial institutions “are not above the law” and that failures of this scale expose the entire U.S. financial system to significant illicit‑finance risks.

Bank of America said it is “committed to completing the work required to address the issues raised by our regulators” and noted that it has invested billions of dollars in technology and thousands of employees to combat financial crime. The bank expects the penalties to result in a non‑tax‑deductible $1.2 billion charge in its quarterly results, reducing net income by approximately 17 cents per share. ReutersReuters. Bank of America fined $1.2 billion by US government for failing to police suspicious activity | Reuters

The Financial Times has reported that President Donald Trump has previously criticized Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, accusing him of personally “debanking” him following the January 2021 Capitol attack. Moynihan has also been absent from several high‑profile events over the past year, including a White House reception for Wall Street executives and the World Economic Forum in Davos.