The value of regulatory penalties imposed on financial institutions worldwide in the first half of 2025 has more than quadrupled compared to the same period last year, new data has revealed.
Fenergo, a leading provider of AI-powered know your customer (KYC), transaction monitoring and client lifecycle management (CLM) solutions, has published its half-year enforcement report, highlighting a significant escalation in fines issued by global regulators.
According to Fenergo’s findings, approximately 139 financial penalties totalling $1.23bn were handed down between January and June 2025, representing a 417% increase on the same period in 2024 when 118 fines worth $238.6m were imposed. The breaches covered areas including anti-money laundering (AML), KYC, sanctions, suspicious activity reports (SARs) and transaction monitoring violations.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) was behind the largest penalties, with cryptocurrency exchange OKX paying more than $504m after pleading guilty to failing to maintain an effective AML programme. BitMEX, another digital assets firm, was fined over $100m for similar breaches, underlining the growing regulatory pressure on the cryptocurrency sector.
North American regulators accounted for the steepest rise in the value of fines, totalling over $1.06bn – a 565% surge compared with H1 2024. The EMEA region also recorded a sharp increase, issuing $168.2m in fines, up 147% from $68m last year. In contrast, the value of penalties issued by regulators in Asia Pacific fell to $3.4m from $10.7m a year earlier.
Sanctions compliance failures have drawn increasing scrutiny from watchdogs, with the total value of related penalties jumping from $3.7m in H1 2024 to $228.8m in H1 2025.
Fenergo head of financial crime policy Rory Doyle said, “These figures offer a stark warning to financial institutions across the globe – particularly those operating in the fast-growing digital assets sector, where watchdogs won’t hesitate to dole out hefty fines for AML shortcomings. The findings also reflect a global trend of increased regulatory scrutiny around sanctions compliance, as geopolitical tensions and evolving sanctions regimes place greater pressure on firms to bolster their systems and processes.
“The importance of integrating smarter financial crime technology with AI to increase accuracy and strengthen due diligence processes cannot be overstated in this context – especially as firms continue to grapple with more complex markets and a shortage of skilled financial crime professionals.”
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