Bank of America must pay more than $1.21 billion in penalties for violating anti-money laundering and sanctions laws, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday.
Within that amount, a 750 million civil monetary penalty — the largest in its 163-year history — over a “deficient and ineffective” compliance program.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control also announced an $11.6 million settlement agreement with Bank of America over sanctions violations tied to Iran, Russia, global terrorism and narcotics.
The Treasury credited the OCC’s penalty toward its $1.2 billion fine. No asset cap was imposed.
Bank of America admitted to willful violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, FinCEN said. The bank admits that it failed to implement and maintain an AML program that satisfied the BSA and FinCEN’s implementing regulations, and that it failed to conduct due diligence for correspondent accounts for foreign financial institutions.
The bank also failed to file suspicious activity reports to the tune of $5 billion, FinCEN found.
According to the OCC, Bank of America failed to properly monitor trillions of dollars in transactions, and the bank “knew for years that it was failing to escalate potentially suspicious activities to investigators for review.” Additionally, the bank’s BSA officer and staff “lacked sufficient skills and expertise” to effectively manage the bank’s BSA/AML program.
In 2024, Bank of America agreed to a cease-and-desist order related to BSA/AML deficiencies. But the lender failed to complete steps needed to establish an effective BSA/AML compliance program after the order, and its program continues to have significant issues, according to the OCC.
A Bank of America spokesperson cited billions of dollars the company has invested in technology and personnel to thwart financial crime. Bank of America’s third-quarter results will include a non-tax-deductible charge of $1.2 billion, impacting net income by approximately 17 cents per share.