Bank of America will pay about $1.21 billion in federal penalties after admitting it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act. The bank failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions on time, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday.
Treasury said more than $1 billion of that activity involved national security and other priority financial-crime risks. These included transactions indicating Chinese money-laundering networks, fraud, and possible trade-based money laundering connected to the southwest border. Suspicious transactions are warning signs that require investigation, not proof that each one involved a crime.
Treasury said the bank “prioritized its revenues” and relied too heavily on law-enforcement inquiries and requests from other financial institutions to identify suspicious activity, instead of its own internal monitoring.
“Today’s actions send a clear message that even the biggest financial institutions are not above the law,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.
U.S. Treasury Announces Record Enforcement Actions Against Bank of America.
October 13, 2026
The $1.2 billion penalty from Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is the third-largest in the department’s history. It includes credit for a $750 million penalty from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the largest that agency has ever imposed. A separate $11.6 million settlement with the Office of Foreign Assets Control covers apparent violations of sanctions programs involving Iran, Russia, narcotics, and terrorism.
The OCC said failures continued after a December 2024 order requiring improvements. According to the agency, the bank knew for years that potentially suspicious activity was not reaching investigators. Regulators also cited inadequate staff training and audits that missed longstanding problems.
The FinCEN order requires independent reviews of the bank’s compliance controls and of past transactions to find suspicious activity that should have been reported. Review work already under way may count toward that requirement, subject to FinCEN approval.
In a statement reported by Reuters, a Bank of America spokesperson said, “Financial crime compliance is serious, and we are responsible for getting it right.” The bank said it has invested billions of dollars in technology and dedicated thousands of employees to fighting financial crime, and that its remediation work is well advanced. Third-quarter results due Wednesday will include a $1.2 billion non-tax-deductible charge, reducing net income by about 17 cents per share.