US banking regulators have fined American Express $350 million, saying its systems for detecting money laundering were inadequate and may have allowed billions of dollars in suspicious transactions to go undetected. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve announced the penalties on the 8th, citing insufficient resources, inexperienced staff, inadequate training and weak internal controls in the anti-money-laundering compliance programs at its subsidiary bank. The OCC said that because of systemic failures in its monitoring and reporting systems, the company had been unable to identify, assess and adequately report roughly $13 billion in suspicious transactions over the past decade. American Express neither admitted nor denied the regulators' findings. In a statement, Chief Executive Officer Stephen Squeri said the company is fully committed to addressing the concerns raised and to continuously improving its compliance programs, and that the costs of the fine and of meeting the regulators' requirements are not expected to affect its financial outlook for 2026 and 2027.
American Express CompanyUS banking regulators fined American Express $350 million over inadequate anti-money-laundering compliance systems.
