American Express Fined $350 Million for Anti-Money Laundering System Flaws

U.S. federal regulators fined American Express $350 million for failing to detect and report money laundering activity within its systems. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) stated Thursday that compliance programs at banks under American Express were deficient. The Federal Reserve also announced enforcement action against the New York-headquartered company. 'The bank's suspicious activity monitoring and reporting processes suffered systemic failures, resulting in its failure to timely identify, assess, and fully report approximately $13 billion in suspected trade-based money laundering activity that occurred over the past decade,' the OCC said in a statement.