Treasury Announces $1.2 Billion Penalty for Bank of America
The U.S. Treasury Department announced Tuesday that Bank of America faces $1.2 billion in penalties over failures involving anti-money laundering controls and sanctions compliance. Treasury described the action as its third-largest penalty on record. The bank also agreed to an $11.6 million settlement with Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control concerning apparent violations of sanctions programs related to Iran, Russia, narcotics and global terrorism.
Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, said the bank failed to adequately address or report risks linked to Chinese money laundering networks and illicit finance along the U.S. southwest border. Treasury said Bank of America admitted willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act, which requires financial institutions to assist the government in detecting and preventing money laundering.
Of the $1.2 billion penalty, $750 million will go to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Treasury said that amount is the largest penalty ever imposed by the federal bank regulator.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said failures at a major bank could expose the wider financial system to illicit finance risks. Bank of America said it had worked with regulators to resolve the matters, which it connected to a previously reported 2024 OCC consent order and FinCEN’s investigation. It said it had invested billions of dollars in technology and assigned thousands of employees to financial crime compliance. The bank said work to address regulators’ concerns is continuing.
The Treasury action follows a roughly $4 billion settlement with cryptocurrency exchange Binance in 2023 and an approximately $3 billion settlement with TD Bank in 2024. Both were larger than the Bank of America penalty. The new action includes the OCC payment within the $1.2 billion total, while the $11.6 million sanctions settlement is separate. The cases involved different institutions and circumstances, but each concerned federal financial crime compliance requirements.