American Express fined $350 million for inadequate anti-money laundering controls

Regulators fined American Express ( AXP ) with a $350 million penalty Thursday over widespread failures in its anti-money laundering controls that left approximately $13 billion in suspected money laundering activity inadequately monitored and reported over nearly 11 years.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) said American Express National Bank failed to maintain adequate safeguards to detect and report suspicious transactions, including potentially illicit activity involving credit and charge cards.

American Express shares fell 2% in extended trading on Thursday. The stock is down more than 16% since the beginning of the year.

Between June 2014 and May 2025, the bank processed approximately billions in suspected trade-based money laundering activity, including suspicious card charges and repayments, according to the OCC's order.

Some of those transactions involved accounts associated with bank insiders, the OCC said, though the order did not identify the individuals involved or specify their roles.

American Express said in a statement that it identified weaknesses in its Financial Crimes Compliance program through internal and external reviews.

"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," the company added.

The company said that a portion of the $350 million penalty had already been reserved in prior periods and would not affect its full-year 2026 financial guidance. The consent orders do not impose a cap on the company's assets, and American Express said it does not expect the costs of complying with them to affect its 2027 guidance either.

The agency found that American Express had systemic weaknesses in its monitoring systems, customer identification procedures, and internal controls that prevented it from identifying and reporting the full scope of suspicious activity to law enforcement.

The bank's risk assessments focused too heavily on its relatively limited deposit-taking activities while failing to adequately account for risks associated with its much larger credit and charge card businesses, according to the OCC.

Regulators also identified inadequate staffing, insufficient expertise, weak employee training, and deficiencies in internal audits that allowed compliance problems to persist.

The failures prevented the bank from providing important information to law enforcement, Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said in a statement.