American Express has been ordered to pay a $350m penalty after US regulators found that serious weaknesses in its AML framework allowed roughly $13bn in suspected illicit activity to go insufficiently monitored and reported across almost 11 years.
According to Yahoo Finance, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) concluded that American Express National Bank did not have adequate safeguards to identify and escalate suspicious transactions, with particular concern around potentially illicit use of its credit and charge cards.
According to the regulator’s order, between June 2014 and May 2025 the bank handled suspected trade-based money laundering activity, including questionable card purchases and repayments. The OCC noted that certain transactions were linked to accounts connected with bank insiders, although it did not name those individuals or describe their positions.
The OCC’s findings pointed to systemic flaws across transaction monitoring, customer identification and internal controls, which stopped the bank from detecting and disclosing the full extent of suspicious activity to law enforcement.
The regulator said the bank’s risk assessments concentrated disproportionately on its comparatively small deposit-taking operations, while underestimating the exposures created by its far larger credit and charge card divisions. Regulators also flagged shortfalls in staffing levels, specialist expertise, employee training and internal audit, which together allowed compliance issues to continue unchecked.
Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said in a statement that these shortcomings meant critical information was not passed on to law enforcement.
Under the terms of the order, American Express is required to rebuild its AML controls, enhance its surveillance of suspicious transactions and tighten its supervision of potential insider misconduct.
The company accepted the OCC’s enforcement orders without admitting or denying the findings. Separately, the Federal Reserve issued its own cease-and-desist order against the firm.
American Express said it had uncovered weaknesses within its Financial Crimes Compliance programme through both internal and external reviews. The firm added that part of the $350m penalty had already been set aside in earlier periods and would not alter its full-year 2026 financial guidance.
The consent orders do not place any limit on the company’s assets, and American Express does not anticipate that compliance costs will affect its 2027 guidance. Its shares slipped 0.3% in premarket trading on Friday and have dropped more than 16% since the start of the year.
American Express said, “We also investigated transactions that we identified being processed over our network by individuals misusing our products for the purchases of goods and services, reported that information to law enforcement, and took other appropriate action.”
Copyright © 2026 RegTech Analyst
Copyright © 2026 RegTech Analyst
