U.S. Regulators Impose $1.21 Billion in Penalties on Bank of America Breaking News · North Carolina · Banking Regulation · Financial Crime Compliance · Sanctions · DINA Analysis By Kirk Ramsey, IIII DINA Co-Editor Democracy Independent News Association (DINA) Published: 2026-10-13 Original: https://www.dinanews247.press/articles/bank-of-america-1-21-billion-penalties-october-13 The Charlotte-headquartered bank admitted willful Bank Secrecy Act violations. Regulators say it failed to timely report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions and did not promptly cure deficiencies identified in a 2024 order. Breaking news · North Carolina · Banking regulation · Financial crime compliance · Sanctions · DINA analysis WASHINGTON — The U.S. Treasury Department imposed more than $1.21 billion in penalties against Charlotte-headquartered Bank of America on Tuesday, saying the nation’s second-largest bank failed to maintain effective anti-money-laundering controls, timely report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions and comply with multiple U.S. sanctions programs. Bank of America admitted in its resolution with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network that it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act. That admission concerns the bank’s compliance program, foreign-bank correspondent-account due diligence and suspicious-activity reporting duties. It is not a finding that every transaction identified by regulators involved a crime. The sanctions matter is legally distinct. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control described 475 apparent sanctions violations and settled the bank’s potential civil liability for $11,662,930. OFAC characterized those apparent violations as non-egregious but largely not voluntarily self-disclosed. How the penalties add up FinCEN assessed a $1.2 billion civil penalty. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency separately assessed a record $750 million penalty for related Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering failures, but FinCEN credited the OCC payment against its assessment. The two amounts therefore should not be added together. Adding OFAC’s $11.66 million settlement brings the combined federal total above $1.21 billion, according to Treasury. The department called the FinCEN action its third-largest penalty and the OCC action the largest civil money penalty in that regulator’s history. Confirmed fact: Treasury, FinCEN, OCC and OFAC issued coordinated enforcement actions on October 13. Bank admission: Bank of America admitted willful violations of the Bank Secrecy Act in the FinCEN resolution. Regulatory finding: OCC found the bank’s anti-money-laundering program deficient and ineffective. OFAC characterization: the sanctions transactions were apparent violations resolved as potential civil liability. Important limit: a suspicious-activity report flags activity for review; it does not establish that a customer committed money laundering or another crime. Regulators say warnings accumulated while fixes lagged Treasury said Bank of America failed to timely report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions. More than $1 billion of that activity implicated national-security or other priority illicit-finance risks, including transactions indicative of Chinese money-laundering networks, fraud and possible trade-based money laundering linked to the southwest border. FinCEN said the bank prioritized revenue and minimized the effect of its compliance decisions on required resources. Regulators said the bank relied too heavily on law-enforcement inquiries, referrals from other financial institutions and other external interventions instead of its own automated controls, allowing suspicious activity to remain uninvestigated for extended periods. OCC said the bank knew for years that potentially suspicious activity was not reaching investigators for review. It also said the bank’s BSA officer and staff lacked sufficient skills and training, internal audit missed longstanding concerns and management continued to minimize significant deficiencies. The timing sharpens the accountability question. Bank of America agreed to an OCC cease-and-desist order in December 2024. OCC now says that, more than a year later, the bank still had not completed many significant steps needed to establish an effective program and continued to have widespread breakdowns. The FinCEN consent order requires a third-party lookback for suspicious transactions missed because of the failures. It also requires independent reviews of transaction monitoring, customer due diligence, foreign correspondent-account due diligence and the data used by the bank’s anti-money-laundering program. OFAC cites Russia, Iran and other sanctions programs OFAC said the bank processed payments involving blocked banks, failed to prioritize some alerts involving exact name-and-birthdate matches to blocked people, delayed watchlist updates after new designations and mishandled two business accounts because of human error. The agency said the 475 apparent violations involved sanctions programs targeting Russia, Belarus, Iran, Burma, Somalia, narcotics trafficking and global terrorism. It said the bank processed millions of dollars in apparently prohibited payments. OFAC’s settlement includes compliance commitments involving training, testing, audits and future cooperation. The bank’s response and North Carolina connection A Bank of America spokesperson told Reuters that financial-crime compliance is serious, that the bank has invested billions of dollars and dedicated thousands of employees to the work, and that it is far along in completing the remediation regulators require. The spokesperson said the company’s third-quarter results would include a $1.2 billion non-tax-deductible charge, reducing quarterly net income by about 17 cents per share. Bank of America Corporation lists its principal executive offices at 100 North Tryon Street in Charlotte. That headquarters connection makes the enforcement action a major North Carolina corporate-accountability story, but the federal releases do not attribute the violations to a particular Charlotte office, North Carolina branch or individual employee. Why it matters Banks’ suspicious-activity reports and sanctions controls are intended to give law enforcement timely information and prevent the financial system from moving prohibited funds. Regulators say Bank of America processes hundreds of trillions of dollars in transactions each year, so weak controls at this scale can amplify national-security and financial-crime risk. The case also tests whether confidential supervisory orders produce timely correction. OCC’s latest action says material failures persisted after the 2024 order, raising questions about how regulators measured progress, what bank directors were told and why a record penalty became necessary before remediation was complete. DINA analysis: penalties are only the first accountability measure DINA analysis: The size of the penalty is newsworthy, but the more consequential issue is institutional responsibility. Regulators describe known problems, internal warnings and incomplete remediation over years. Public accountability therefore should reach beyond a corporate payment to the decisions of the board, senior executives, compliance leaders and regulators responsible for testing the 2024 order. The public also needs a clear way to evaluate the required lookback. Aggregate disclosure can protect customer confidentiality while still showing how many previously missed cases were found, how long reporting was delayed, what risk categories were involved and whether the redesigned controls work. Because Bank of America admitted willful BSA violations, directors should publicly explain whether compensation, promotion or clawback decisions will follow. A fine paid by the corporation ultimately affects shareholders; it does not by itself identify or remedy individual failures of oversight. Urgent follow-up and public-record requests Request the complete FinCEN consent order, OCC civil-money-penalty order and every nonconfidential milestone, validation report and status update tied to the December 2024 cease-and-desist order. Ask Treasury and the bank to publish aggregate results of the required transaction lookback, including the number and value of newly identified transactions, reporting delays and risk categories. Seek board and committee minutes, presentations and escalation records describing when directors learned of the control failures and what corrective deadlines they approved. Ask Bank of America whether any current or former executive’s compensation will be reduced, forfeited or clawed back, and whether any employee discipline resulted from the admitted violations. Request an accounting of compliance spending, staffing levels, contractor costs and unresolved vacancies from 2022 through the completion of remediation. Ask OCC and FinCEN why the 2024 order did not produce faster correction, what enforcement options were considered earlier and how independent reviewers will be selected and paid. Seek any North Carolina-specific data that can be released without exposing customers or suspicious-activity reports, while avoiding unsupported claims that a local branch caused the national failures. Sources U.S. Treasury Department — record enforcement actions against Bank of America, October 13, 2026 (https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0657/) Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — $750 million assessment and findings, October 13, 2026 (https://www.occ.treas.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2026/nr-occ-2026-89.html) Office of Foreign Assets Control — $11.66 million settlement and 475 apparent violations, October 13, 2026 (https://ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions/20261013_33) Reuters — enforcement actions and Bank of America response, October 13, 2026 (https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/bofa-fined-12-billion-by-us-government-failing-police-suspicious-activity-2026-10-13/) Bank of America 2025 annual report — Charlotte principal executive offices (https://investor.bankofamerica.com/regulatory-and-other-filings/select-sec-filings/content/0000070858-26-000157/bac-20251231.htm?wcmmode=disabled) REPUBLICATION NOTICE Original DINA-authored text may be republished without charge under the terms at https://www.dinanews247.press/syndication#terms. Third-party material and images require separate permission. SOCIAL POST U.S. Regulators Impose $1.21 Billion in Penalties on Bank of America The Charlotte-headquartered bank admitted willful Bank Secrecy Act violations. Regulators say it failed to timely report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions and did not promptly cure deficiencies identified in a 2024 order. Breaking News · North Carolina · Banking Regulation · Financial Crime Compliance · Sanctions · DINA Analysis By Kirk Ramsey, IIII DINA Co-Editor Democracy Independent News Association (DINA) Read the full report and sources: https://www.dinanews247.press/articles/bank-of-america-1-21-billion-penalties-october-13 #DINA #PublicAccountability