Bank of America Penalty Draws Treasury Action
Bank of America penalty of more than $1.21 billion from Treasury agencies highlights alleged AML reporting failures traders will weigh for regulatory risk.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Treasury imposed more than $1.21 billion in combined penalties on Bank of America.
- FinCEN assessed a $1.2 billion penalty for alleged failures to report priority national-security risks.
- OCC leveled a $750 million civil money penalty and OFAC settled for $11.6 million.
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The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced on Oct. 13, 2026, that Bank of America Corp. (BAC) faces more than $1.21 billion in penalties for alleged anti-money-laundering (AML) and sanctions-law violations involving extensive unreported suspicious activity.
Treasury Enforcement Actions and Reporting Failures
The Treasury’s combined enforcement actions include a $1.2 billion Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) penalty for failing to mitigate and report priority national-security and illicit-finance risks. The agency cited suspicious activity linked to Chinese money-laundering networks, fraud, and potential trade-based money laundering with a significant southwest-border connection.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) imposed a $750 million civil money penalty for deficiencies in Bank of America’s Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and AML compliance program. The OCC cited violations of the BSA and related regulations, including 12 C.F.R. §§ 21.21 and 21.11.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) reached an $11.6 million settlement over apparent violations involving sanctions programs related to Iran, Russia, narcotics, and global terrorism. The bank agreed to settle potential civil liability for 475 apparent sanctions violations, which OFAC characterized as non-egregious and largely not voluntarily self-disclosed.
Treasury said Bank of America failed to timely report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions to FinCEN, with over $1 billion of that activity allegedly involving national-security-related and other priority illicit-finance risks. These reporting failures were central to the enforcement actions and the division of penalties among the three agencies.
The Treasury described Bank of America as the second-largest U.S. bank. It characterized the penalty package as the third-largest in Treasury history and the largest ever assessed by the OCC. The breakdown highlights distinct compliance gaps: transaction monitoring and reporting at FinCEN, program effectiveness at the OCC, and sanctions adherence at OFAC. For a bank of this scale, the action emphasizes regulators’ focus on financial-crime controls and the costs tied to shortcomings in surveillance, reporting, and program governance.
