American Express Fined $350 Million by U.S. Regulators Over Decade-Long Anti-Money-Laundering Failures

American Express has been fined $350 million by U.S. banking regulators after they determined the company's anti-money-laundering compliance program, primarily at its national bank subsidiary, was insufficient and missed billions of dollars in suspicious activity, according to Yahoo Finance and the AML Intelligence report on the enforcement action.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve jointly announced the action on Thursday, October 8, saying American Express, through its national bank, failed to maintain a sufficient anti-money-laundering compliance program, according to AML Intelligence and the Straits Times.

A decade of unflagged suspicious activity

The OCC said the bank experienced systemic breakdowns in its suspicious activity monitoring and reporting processes, resulting in a failure to timely identify, evaluate and sufficiently report approximately $13 billion of suspected trade-based money laundering activity over the past decade, according to the regulator's statement as reported by the Straits Times. Yahoo Finance similarly reported that roughly $13 billion in suspected money-laundering activity went inadequately monitored and reported over nearly 11 years.

According to the OCC's order as described by Yahoo Finance, the conduct ran from June 2014 to May 2025 and included suspicious card charges and repayments. Some of the transactions involved accounts associated with bank insiders, Yahoo Finance reported, though the order did not identify the individuals involved or specify their roles.

Compliance gaps cited by regulators

Regulators pointed to inadequate resources, inexperienced staff, weak training and internal control gaps as contributing factors, according to AML Intelligence. Yahoo Finance's account of the order added that regulators also identified insufficient expertise and deficiencies in internal audits that allowed compliance problems to persist.

Yahoo Finance further reported that the bank's risk assessments focused too heavily on its relatively limited deposit-taking activities while failing to adequately account for risks tied to its much larger credit and charge card businesses, a mismatch regulators flagged as a core weakness.

Required remediation, no asset cap

Under the order, American Express must overhaul its anti-money-laundering controls, improve monitoring of suspicious transactions and strengthen oversight of potentially illicit insider activity, Yahoo Finance reported. The consent orders do not impose a cap on the company's assets, according to Yahoo Finance and the Straits Times, which cited an American Express regulatory filing.

The Federal Reserve issued a separate enforcement action against the New York-based parent company tied to its anti-money-laundering program, which Yahoo Finance described as a cease-and-desist order and the Straits Times characterized as a linked enforcement action focused on the firm's national bank subsidiary.

Amex's response

American Express said in a statement, as reported by Yahoo Finance, that it had identified weaknesses in its Financial Crimes Compliance program through internal and external reviews. CEO Steve Squeri said the company investigated transactions processed over its network by individuals misusing its products for purchases of goods and services, reported that information to law enforcement, and took other appropriate action. "While we have made meaningful progress, we know there is more work to do," Squeri said, according to the Straits Times.

Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said the failures prevented the bank from providing important information to law enforcement, according to Yahoo Finance.

The company said a portion of the $350 million penalty had already been reserved in prior periods and that the fine will not affect its previously issued full-year 2026 financial guidance, per Yahoo Finance. The Straits Times reported that costs tied to fixing the issues are not expected to impact 2027 guidance either.

Market reaction

Amex shares fell nearly 2% to $302.10 in after-market trading on October 8, the Straits Times reported. Yahoo Finance reported shares slipped 0.3% in premarket trading the following day and are down more than 16% since the start of the year.

By our calculation, the 0.3% premarket slip is 15.7 percentage points smaller than the more-than-16% year-to-date decline (0.3 - 16 = -15.7), a relative difference of about 98% ((0.3 - 16) / 16 x 100 = -98.1%). This is an interpretation drawn from arithmetic on the two figures reported by Yahoo Finance; it is not evidence of a causal link between the penalty and the stock's broader 2026 trajectory.

Context: a steep penalty amid lighter oversight

The Straits Times described the $350 million fine as one of the steepest penalties imposed by U.S. financial authorities during President Donald Trump's second term, noting that watchdogs have largely worked to reduce the regulations large U.S. banks face, including relaxing capital buffer requirements, narrowing the scope of bank supervision and shrinking a Federal Reserve unit dedicated to bank oversight. American Express is best known for premium credit cards such as the Platinum card, which carries an $895 annual fee, and also operates a national bank offering checking and savings accounts, according to the Straits Times.

Bottom Line

Regulators say American Express's compliance program failed to catch roughly $13 billion in suspected trade-based money laundering over a decade, prompting a $350 million penalty and a mandated overhaul of its monitoring and oversight practices. The company says it has already reserved part of the fine and does not expect the penalty or remediation costs to disrupt its near-term financial guidance, even as its shares remain down sharply for the year.