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 on Wednesday imposed a $350 million civil money penalty against American Express National Bank, based in Sandy, Utah, citing significant deficiencies in the institution's Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering compliance program, according to an agency announcement.
Alongside the monetary penalty, the OCC issued a cease-and-desist order against the bank — a formal enforcement action that compels the institution to correct identified deficiencies under regulatory oversight. Such orders typically require banks to overhaul internal controls, staffing, and reporting procedures within prescribed timeframes.
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The Bank Secrecy Act requires financial institutions to assist government agencies in detecting and preventing money laundering, terrorist financing, and other illicit financial activity. Failures in BSA and AML programs have drawn heightened regulatory scrutiny across the banking sector in recent years, with enforcers signaling a low tolerance for compliance gaps at institutions of any size.
American Express National Bank, the Utah-chartered subsidiary through which American Express conducts certain banking operations, now faces binding obligations to remediate the compliance shortcomings identified by the OCC. The scale of the penalty places this action among the more substantial BSA-related enforcement actions taken against a U.S. bank subsidiary in recent memory, underscoring the seriousness with which regulators are treating institutional AML lapses.
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