Bank of America Fined $1.2 Billion by US Treasury for Willfully Violating Anti-Money Laundering Rules and Failing to Report Over $5 Billion in Suspicious Activity

Bank of America has been fined $1.2 billion (approximately £910 million) by the US Treasury Department after admitting it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to maintain a compliant anti-money laundering (AML) programme, conduct required due diligence on foreign correspondent accounts, and file suspicious activity reports (SARs). The announcement came on Tuesday, 13 October 2026. The bank failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious activity, of which $1 billion was assessed as posing national security and illicit finance risks. Failures included not flagging transactions potentially linked to Chinese money laundering networks and trade-based laundering with a connection to the southwest US border. The $1.2 billion fine was assessed by the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which credited a $750 million civil money penalty from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), described as the largest penalty the OCC has ever levied. A separate settlement with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), relating to 475 apparent violations of sanctions programmes covering Russia, Iran, narcotics, and global terrorism, added $11.6 million, bringing the combined total of the three actions to more than $1.21 billion. OFAC's settlement reflected a finding that the apparent violations were categorised as non-egregious. The Treasury Department described the fine as the third-largest the department has ever imposed. The bank acknowledged it had effectively outsourced a substantial portion of its detection and reporting obligations to third parties rather than maintaining adequate internal controls. Bank of America confirmed the $1.2 billion charge will appear in its third-quarter earnings results.

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