Amex fined $350 million by the OCC and the Fed over money-laundering controls

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency assessed a $350 million civil money penalty against American Express⁴. The company was fined for an insufficient anti-money-laundering programme³. Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said American Express had failed to maintain a Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering compliance programme properly aligned with the money-laundering risks it faced^2,4.

The Federal Reserve Board announced its own enforcement action against American Express Company, which it said addressed, among other things, the firm’s failure to sufficiently detect and report certain suspicious activity related to money laundering⁷. Taken together, the two regulators fined the firm $350 million and ordered it to overhaul its controls^5,6.

What the regulators said was missed

According to the Financial Times, the OCC said American Express had failed to identify and report about $13 billion¹. Reuters reported that the OCC said the company had focused on risks in one area, although the published excerpt stops before naming it³.

American Express said on Thursday that it “takes its responsibility to combat financial” crime seriously, in a statement quoted as the penalty was announced⁵. The company’s shares fell after the fine was disclosed². One trade publication noted the action came in the same stretch in which the OCC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation finalised narrower bank supervision procedures⁶.

Why it matters to investors

The size of the penalty sets a current marker for what a sustained compliance failure costs a large card issuer, and it was imposed by two regulators acting together rather than one^4,6,7. For shareholders, the cash penalty is usually the smaller cost. The remediation order is the one that runs through the income statement, because overhauling transaction monitoring means new systems, new staff and, often, slower onboarding of customers^6,7.

There is a second signal in the timing. The same supervisors have been narrowing the grounds on which they criticise banks, yet they brought a nine-figure penalty for reporting failures in the same period⁶. That combination suggests a shift in emphasis rather than a general retreat: fewer process findings, but enforcement where detection and reporting break down.

What to watch is the scope of the consent orders, whether American Express quantifies the remediation cost in its next filing, and whether other large issuers disclose similar examinations^2,5,6. A nine-figure penalty against a card network is also a reference point for anyone pricing compliance risk across consumer finance, including issuers that have not yet disclosed an examination.