Bank of America fined $1.2 billion for violating Islamic Republic sanctions and money laundering

The US Treasury Department announced on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, that Bank of America, the country's second-largest bank, has been fined a total of more than $1.21 billion for violating anti-money-laundering laws and several sanctions programs, including sanctions on the Islamic Republic. The Treasury called it the largest set of penalties it has imposed on the bank.

According to the Treasury, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) set a $1.2 billion penalty because Bank of America failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions to regulators; more than $1 billion of those transactions, the agency said, were linked to national security risks and other FinCEN priorities. Bank of America has admitted that it knowingly violated the Bank Secrecy Act.

Violations of Islamic Republic sanctions

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) separately reached an $11.6 million settlement with Bank of America over 475 apparent sanctions violations. The cases cover the sanctions programs on the Islamic Republic, Russia, Belarus, Myanmar and Somalia, as well as narcotics and terrorism sanctions. The Treasury did not state separately how many of the cases involved the Islamic Republic or their value.

According to the Treasury, the violations included routing correspondent payments through sanctioned banks, allowing sanctioned individuals to carry out transactions because system alerts were set up incorrectly, failing to update sanctions lists in time, and mishandling business accounts linked to sanctioned persons. The Islamic Republic is also listed among the high-risk areas that the bank must examine specifically in future independent reviews.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency also imposed a $750 million civil penalty on the bank over an ineffective anti-money-laundering program. Bank of America had been under a cease-and-desist order from that office since December 2024 and, according to the Treasury, had still not followed up on suspicious activity more than a year later. The bank is booking a charge of about $1.2 billion in its third-quarter results.

Reaction from Scott Bessent and Bank of America

Scott Bessent, the US Treasury Secretary, said financial institutions are on the front line of protecting the economic and national security of the United States. A Bank of America spokesperson said the bank has invested billions of dollars in technology and personnel to combat financial crime and is committed to fixing the shortcomings identified by regulators.

The fine was announced a few days after a $350 million fine on American Express over similar shortcomings, and it is part of Washington's tightening pressure on the Islamic Republic's financial and oil networks — pressure that, together with the US naval blockade, has cut the Islamic Republic's crude oil exports to zero in Mehr and, according to the International Monetary Fund's forecast, will shrink Iran's economy by 7.6 percent this year.

Bank of America has been fined more than $1.2 billion; 475 sanctions violations, including violations of Islamic Republic sanctions, are on its record.