US fines Bank of America $1.21bn over money laundering and sanctions

The US Department of the Treasury has imposed a total of $1.21 billion in financial penalties on Bank of America, one of the country’s largest financial institutions, for violating anti-money laundering legislation and sanctions regimes.

According to a statement published by the department, the bank was accused of failing to report suspicious transactions in a timely manner, failing to monitor financial movements that posed national security risks, and providing services to clients on sanctions lists.

Decisions by units operating under the Treasury Department accounted for the largest components of the penalty package.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) penalised the bank for failing to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions in a timely manner.

More than $1 billion of that amount was noted to be directly linked to national security risks, including the operations of China-based money laundering networks.

Under the settlement reached with FinCEN, Bank of America admitted to willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act. The bank was required to conduct an additional review covering suspicious transactions and to assess the effectiveness of its financial monitoring system.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) separately fined the bank $750 million over structural deficiencies in its financial monitoring system.

The OCC stated that the bank failed to maintain adequate oversight over trillions of dollars in fund transfers and did not remedy the violations despite a formal notice served in December 2024.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also stepped in over millions of dollars in transactions carried out in breach of sanctions regulations. OFAC reached an $11.6 million settlement agreement with Bank of America concerning 475 distinct potential sanctions violations.

Assessing the matter, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, “The actions taken today send a clear message that even the largest financial institutions are not above the law.”

UK fines banks over breaches of Russia sanctions

Alongside the penalty decision in the US, similar sanctions scrutiny is being carried out across European financial centres.

In September, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), an agency of the UK Treasury, fined Citibank’s London branch (CBNA London) £4.7 million for violating sanctions targeting Russia.

According to findings by the British regulator, between February and November 2022 following the outbreak of armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the bank processed 970 payments worth a combined £19.7 million, circumventing asset freezes and other restrictions. The government stated that the majority of the violations were linked to corporate accounts owned or controlled by sanctioned individuals. Russia, meanwhile, describes sanctions imposed by Western nations as illegal.

During the spring, OFSI also fined the London branch of Germany’s Deutsche Bank £165,000 ($221,000) for transferring funds to the Russian online streaming platform Okko.

Over the same period, the watchdog imposed a £390,000 fine on Apple’s European entity, Apple Distribution International (ADI), for a similar violation.