{"id":14464,"date":"2026-10-14T11:07:50","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T11:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cryptonews.uk.com\/?p=14464"},"modified":"2026-10-14T11:07:50","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T11:07:50","slug":"bank-of-america-backed-crypto-aml-rules-but-reported-over-5-billion-in-suspicious-activity-late","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cryptonews.uk.com\/?p=14464","title":{"rendered":"Bank of America backed crypto AML rules but reported over $5 billion in suspicious activity late"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In December 2023, Senator Elizabeth Warren asked Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan whether crypto companies handling financial transactions should follow the same anti-money-laundering rules as banks.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d he said. On Oct. 13, Treasury announced more than $1.2 billion in penalties against his bank. FinCEN found that Bank of America admitted to willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act and failed to report over $5 billion in suspicious transactions on time.<\/p>\n

What regulators found at Bank of America<\/h2>\n

FinCEN assessed $1.2 billion, including the OCC’s $750 million penalty, the largest civil money penalty the OCC has assessed against a bank. OFAC separately announced an $11.6 million settlement covering 475 apparent sanctions violations.<\/p>\n

FinCEN says the bank admitted violations in three areas: its AML program, due diligence on foreign correspondent accounts and the filing of suspicious activity reports.<\/p>\n

More than $1 billion of the late-reported transactions involved priority illicit-finance and national-security risks, including Chinese money laundering networks and potential trade-based laundering near the southwestern border.<\/p>\n

The OCC found deficient transaction monitoring across trillions of dollars in activity, late reports involving billions, insufficient BSA staff expertise, inadequate training, audit failures and weak remediation of a December 2024 cease-and-desist order.<\/p>\n

Treasury said the bank relied too heavily on law-enforcement inquiries, referrals from other institutions, and external interventions to identify suspicious activity, with its internal monitoring systems playing a smaller role.<\/p>\n

Comptroller Jonathan Gould described the second-largest US bank as processing hundreds of trillions of dollars annually, carrying a high and increasing illicit-finance risk profile and showing \u201cwidespread breakdowns\u201d since the 2024 order.<\/p>\n

The findings span several years, including the period since Moynihan’s Senate testimony. The $5 billion measures suspicious transactions reported late, rather than an established total of laundered money.<\/p>\n

The banking lobby’s crypto push<\/h2>\n

At the Dec. 6, 2023 Senate Banking Committee hearing, Warren first asked whether Bank of America had systems to detect, report, and stop potential terrorist-financing activity, and Moynihan answered yes.<\/p>\n

Warren then asked about crypto companies, and he replied \u201cAbsolutely,\u201d endorsing equivalent AML obligations for crypto firms that handle financial transactions.<\/p>\n

Moynihan sits on the Bank Policy Institute board and has served as its chair, according to Bank of America’s investor materials.<\/p>\n