U.S. federal regulators issued significantly fewer enforcement actions in response to Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering program breaches in 2016 than the previous year, and fined only a quarter of the institutions they cited for such infractions. The 41 purely AML-related actions disclosed last year by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Federal Reserve and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network against banks and other financial institutions represents a drop of more than 20 percent from 2015, and the lowest annual total since at least 2008, according to data reviewed by ACAMS moneylaundering.com. Only nine...
Federal regulators of anti-money laundering rules issued 16 percent more enforcement actions in 2015 than in the previous year, a jump due in part to an intensified focus on nonbank firms.
Sometimes a decline in bank enforcement actions isn't a good thing, even for bankers. Such is the takeaway of a review of enforcement action data spanning back five years, during which the number of formal Bank Secrecy Act penalties fell nearly 20 percent while fines and regulatory demands grew.
In a year when the number of enforcement actions issued by federal financial regulators fell by nearly half, Bank Secrecy Act-related penalties earned an unusual distinction. They declined by less than 14 percent.
Fines and monetary settlements paid in 2012 by banks for anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing violations increased 131-fold from the previous year, ACAMS moneylaundering.com data shows.
The total number of anti-money laundering enforcement fines handed down by federal regulators rose by 67 percent in 2011 compared to the previous year.
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