OCC Fines American Express National Bank $350 Million Over AML Failures
Federal regulators issued a cease-and-desist order and a $350M penalty against American Express National Bank for anti-money laundering compliance failures.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced Monday that it is imposing a $350 million civil money penalty against American Express National Bank, headquartered in Sandy, Utah, citing serious deficiencies in the institution's Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering compliance program.
Alongside the financial penalty, the OCC issued a cease-and-desist order against the bank — a formal enforcement action that typically requires an institution to correct identified weaknesses and submit to heightened regulatory oversight. Such orders can restrict certain business activities until regulators are satisfied that deficiencies have been remediated.
Read more Fed Takes Enforcement Action Against American Express Over Money Laundering Lapses →
The Bank Secrecy Act requires financial institutions to maintain robust programs designed to detect and report suspicious activity that could indicate money laundering, terrorist financing, or other financial crimes. Failures in these programs have drawn increasingly stiff penalties from federal regulators in recent years as enforcement priorities have intensified across the banking sector.
American Express National Bank operates as the federally chartered banking subsidiary of the broader American Express financial services enterprise. The OCC's action targets the bank entity specifically, reflecting the regulator's jurisdiction over nationally chartered banks. The scale of the penalty places it among the more significant BSA-related enforcement actions in recent memory.
Continue reading at OCC News.
