Bank of America Just Got Hit With a $1.2 Billion Fine
The U.S. Treasury Department dropped a major penalty on one of the country’s biggest banks Tuesday, announcing more than $1.2 billion in fines against Bank of America for violating anti-money laundering and sanctions laws. It is the third-largest penalty in Treasury history and the largest anti-money laundering fine the Trump administration has levied against a major bank.
The fine comes from two separate federal regulators acting together. The Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, assessed the $1.2 billion penalty. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — the OCC, which regulates national banks — separately assessed a $750 million civil money penalty, the largest in OCC history. The OCC fine counts as credit against the $1.2 billion total rather than stacking on top of it.
“When a bank of this size fails to meet its anti-money laundering and sanctions obligations, the consequences extend far beyond its own walls, exposing the entire U.S. financial system to significant illicit finance risks,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “Today’s actions send a clear message that even the biggest financial institutions are not above the law.”
What Bank of America Actually Failed to Do
The violations center on the Bank Secrecy Act — the foundational federal law that requires financial institutions to detect and report suspicious activity that might indicate money laundering, terrorism financing, or other financial crimes.
According to FinCEN’s findings, Bank of America failed for years to adequately monitor its accounts and transactions for red flags. Regulators say the bank failed to mitigate and report “priority national security risks,” specifically calling out Chinese money laundering networks and illicit financial activity along the southwest border. The failures also included transactions with possible connections to narcotics trafficking proceeds, fraud, and potential trade-based money laundering that weren’t addressed in a timely manner.
Perhaps most significantly: Bank of America admitted as part of its resolution with FinCEN that it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act. It admitted to failing to implement and maintain an adequate anti-money laundering program, failing to conduct proper due diligence for foreign financial institution accounts, and failing to file required Suspicious Activity Reports. The word “willfully” matters — it’s a higher legal standard than negligence and reflects a finding that the violations weren’t accidental.
The bank also violated sanctions against Russia and Iran, according to the Washington Post’s reporting on the penalty.
The total unreported suspicious activity identified by regulators exceeded $5 billion. More than $1 billion of that involved national security and high-priority risks.
This Wasn’t the First Warning
This penalty didn’t come out of nowhere. The OCC had already issued Bank of America a cease-and-desist order in December 2024, requiring the bank to fix its anti-money laundering compliance program. The $750 million OCC penalty announced Tuesday came in part because regulators found the bank had failed to remediate the deficiencies identified in that 2024 order.
In a statement, Bank of America acknowledged the resolution: “We worked with regulators to reach these penalty resolutions stemming from violations cited in the previously reported 2024 Consent Order and FinCEN’s investigation.” The bank did not contest the findings.
Where This Ranks Historically
The $1.2 billion total is the third-largest penalty ever issued by Treasury’s FinCEN. The two larger actions were a roughly $4 billion settlement with Binance in 2023 and an approximately $3 billion settlement with Canada-based TD Bank in 2024 — both actions from the Biden administration targeting major institutions for anti-money laundering failures.
The Bank of America penalty is notable for involving a traditional U.S. commercial bank rather than a cryptocurrency exchange or foreign institution. Bank of America is the second-largest bank in the United States. The size and profile of the institution involved makes the penalty a signal that regulators intend to hold major domestic banks to the same standard as other financial actors.
The cost of building and maintaining a genuinely effective anti-money laundering compliance program is significant. As one analyst noted, everything the OCC is requiring Bank of America to implement will cost money and reduce profits. But the alternative — as Tuesday’s announcement made clear — can cost considerably more.
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