{"id":933048,"date":"2026-10-14T19:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T19:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/933048\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T19:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T19:12:11","slug":"bank-of-america-fined-1-2bn-for-money-laundering-failures-bank-of-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/933048\/","title":{"rendered":"Bank of America fined $1.2bn for money-laundering failures | Bank of America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bank of America<\/a> (BAC.N), has been fined $1.21bn by US regulators for widespread failures to detect \u200cpotential money laundering and other illicit activity, a penalty the bank said will hurt third-quarter earnings.<\/p>\n

The US treasury department said the fine, the third-largest in department history, is due to the bank\u2019s failure to report more than $5bn in suspicious activity to the government, including $1bn that posed national security-related and other priority illicit finance risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinancial institutions are on the \u200bfront lines of protecting our economic and national security,\u201d the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said in a statement. \u201cWhen a bank of this size \u200bfails to meet its anti-money laundering and sanctions obligations, the consequences extend far beyond its own walls, exposing the \u2060entire US financial system to significant illicit finance risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

The treasury said the bank \u201cprioritized its revenues\u201d in building compliance programs, and overly relied on inquiries \u200bfrom outside parties such as law enforcement and other financial institutions instead of its own internal controls.<\/p>\n

The consent order requires Bank of America<\/a> to hire an \u200bindependent third party to review past transactions, identify suspicious activity that the bank failed to detect at the time and report those transactions to the treasury department\u2019s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinancial crime compliance is serious, and we are responsible for getting it right,\u201d said a Bank of America spokesperson in a statement. \u201cWe have invested billions of dollars in technology and dedicated thousands of \u200bemployees to combat financial crime, and our team is far along with and committed to completing the work required to address the issues raised \u200bby our regulators.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesperson added that the bank\u2019s third-quarter results due for release on Wednesday would include a non-tax-deductible charge of $1.2bn, which will reduce quarterly net income \u200cby approximately \u206017 cents a share.<\/p>\n

Analysts have estimated adjusted earnings per share of $1.10, according to mean estimates compiled by LSEG, but that excludes one-offs like this fine.<\/p>\n

Shares were down 2.7% in after-hours trading after closing the day down 1.1%.<\/p>\n

The penalty is likely to add to negative investor sentiment and raise concerns about higher expenses and whether Bank of America can maintain its roughly $6bn quarterly share buyback pace, the UBS analyst Erika Najarian said in a note.<\/p>\n

With earnings due \u200bon Wednesday, \u201cwe think shares likely underperforming at \u200bopen\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

She noted there \u2060was no asset cap, a regulatory penalty that would limit how large the bank could grow.<\/p>\n

As part of the fine, the treasury department\u2019s office of the comptroller of the currency levied a $750m civil \u200bpenalty against the lender, the largest ever for the regulator, citing failures to address shortcomings in its anti-money \u200blaundering programs that were \u2060identified as part of a 2024 cease-and-desist order from the watchdog.<\/p>\n

The regulator said the bank\u2019s compliance program was \u201cdeficient and ineffective\u201d, and its transaction monitoring system caused the bank to delay filing suspicious activity reports on billions of dollars of transactions.<\/p>\n

In addition, the bank paid an $11.6m fine to the treasury department\u2019s office of foreign \u2060assets control \u200bfor more than 400 apparent violations of numerous sanctions programs. The treasury said the bank mistakenly \u200bprocessed millions of dollars in payments that violated sanctions programs targeting countries including Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n

The fine comes days after American Express was also hit with a $350m penalty<\/a> for similar anti-money \u200blaundering shortcomings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bank of America (BAC.N), has been fined $1.21bn by US regulators for widespread failures to detect \u200cpotential money…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":933049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-933048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/933049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}