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Wednesday, October 14, 2026

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Treasury · Wednesday, October 14, 2026

Treasury fines Bank of America over money-laundering controls

The File desk · Oct 14, 2026, 10:59 AM UTC

Status

Confirmed as Treasury’s release of Oct. 13, 2026. Bank of America admits the

violations in the FinCEN resolution. The sanctions piece is a settlement of apparent violations, not a criminal case. The three penalty figures and the “more than $1.21 billion” line are all in the release. This desk does not know whether they overlap.

  • Confirmed

    FinCEN assessed a $1.2 billion penalty. The release says Bank of America admits it willfully violated the

    , including failures to keep a sufficient anti-money-laundering program, to check foreign bank accounts, and to file suspicious-activity reports.

  • Confirmed

    The Comptroller of the Currency assessed a $750 million penalty and cites

    and . covers 475 apparent sanctions violations. OFAC calls them non-egregious and largely not voluntarily self-disclosed.

The Treasury Department said Tuesday it had imposed more than $1.21 billion in penalties on Bank of America for failures in anti-money-laundering and sanctions controls. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s piece is $1.2 billion. In that resolution the bank admits it willfully broke the

. The Comptroller of the Currency added a $750 million penalty. The sanctions office settled 475 apparent violations for $11.6 million and called them non-egregious. Treasury says the bank failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions on time. This is civil enforcement. It is not a criminal charge.

The release is dated Oct. 13, 2026. Treasury calls Bank of America the second-largest bank in the United States. It says the actions include the third-largest penalty in Treasury history and the largest in the history of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Three offices acted. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which collects reports of suspicious money, assessed $1.2 billion. The Comptroller, which supervises national banks, assessed $750 million. The Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces sanctions, settled for $11.6 million. The release’s own total line is “more than $1.21 billion.” Adding the three figures gives a larger number. The release does not say whether the penalties overlap. This story does not invent a reconciliation.

On the FinCEN piece, the release says Bank of America admits it willfully violated the

. That law is the main rule that makes banks watch for money laundering. The admission covers three failures: an anti-money-laundering program that did not meet the minimum rules, weak checks on accounts held for foreign banks, and a failure to file suspicious-activity reports. Those reports are the notices a bank sends when a transaction looks like it might be illicit.

Treasury says the bank did not report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions on time. More than $1 billion of that, the release says, touched national-security and other priority risks, including Chinese money-laundering networks, fraud, and possible trade-based money laundering tied to the southwest border. Trade-based laundering means hiding dirty money inside the paperwork of ordinary imports and exports.

requires a lookback, with an outside firm, for suspicious transactions the bank missed, and an independent review of its monitoring, its customer checks, and its foreign-bank accounts. The review is aimed at the southwest border and cartels, Iran, and Russia.

The Comptroller’s penalty cites the

and its rules, including and . This desk did not open the regulation text. The release also says the bank is under the , which required it to fix the program. Treasury says that after that order the bank still failed to send potentially suspicious activity to investigators, and that a gap let possible trade-based laundering through. The Comptroller says the monitoring system failed to cover trillions of dollars in transactions and produced late reports on billions of dollars.

On sanctions, the bank agreed to settle potential civil liability for 475 apparent violations. The release says payments went through blocked banks, designated people moved money, watchlists were slow to update, and business accounts tied to blocked people were mishandled, from technical and human error. The programs named are Russia, Belarus, Iran, Burma, Somalia, narcotics, and global terrorism.

reflects a finding that the apparent violations were non-egregious and largely not voluntarily self-disclosed. The base penalty was not reduced for fixes or cooperation. The bank agreed to training, testing, and future contact with OFAC.

Secretary Scott Bessent said a bank of this size that misses its anti-money-laundering and sanctions duties exposes the whole U.S. financial system. That sentence is his.

What is still unknown or disputed

Primary sources

Every claim in this story is drawn from the documents below. If a fetch failed, that is recorded on the card.

  1. Source 1

    U.S. Treasury Announces Record Enforcement Actions Against Bank of America

    U.S. Department of the Treasury · October 13, 2026

    Treasury announced enforcement actions imposing more than $1.21 billion in penalties against Bank of America. FinCEN assessed $1.2 billion. The OCC assessed $750 million. OFAC announced an $11.6 million settlement. The bank admits it willfully violated the BSA.

    https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0657

  2. Source 2

    FinCEN consent order, Bank of America

    Financial Crimes Enforcement Network · October 13, 2026

    The consent order linked from the Treasury release. The requirements described in this story are from the release’s account of the order.

    https://www.fincen.gov/system/files/2026-10/BoA-Consent-Order-Execution-Final.pdf

  3. Source 3

    OFAC enforcement release, Bank of America

    Office of Foreign Assets Control · October 13, 2026

    The enforcement release linked from the Treasury announcement. The $11.6 million terms in this story are from the Treasury release.

    https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/937231/download?inline