Bank of America takes $1.2 billion penalty over AML failures
What's new: Treasury said the bank failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions, including over $1 billion tied to national security risks.
Bank of America will take a $1.2 billion charge after U.S. regulators penalized the bank for anti-money-laundering and sanctions failures stretching over years. Treasury said the bank did not report more than $5 billion in suspicious activity and admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to maintain a compliant AML program, perform due diligence on foreign correspondent accounts and file suspicious activity reports. More than $1 billion of the unreported activity involved high-priority risks, including Chinese money-laundering networks and transactions tied to the southwest border. The settlement also includes an $11.6 million sanctions case involving 475 apparent violations tied to programs including Russia and Iran.