The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday announced an enforcement action against American Express Company, citing the firm's failure to sufficiently detect and report certain suspicious activity related to money laundering.
The announcement lands as federal regulators intensify scrutiny of the country's largest financial institutions, just one day after the Treasury Department hit Bank of America with a $1.2 billion penalty — the third-largest fine in the department's history — for widespread failures in its own anti-money laundering programs, according to reporting by The Guardian.
The Federal Reserve's action against American Express addresses, among other things, the company's shortcomings in identifying and reporting suspicious transactions. The central bank did not disclose the full scope of the deficiencies in its public announcement.
THE PATTERN: BANKS THAT STOPPED WATCHING
The American Express action arrives in the middle of a broader federal push to hold financial giants accountable for what critics describe as years of prioritizing profit over policing dirty money.
In the Bank of America case, the Treasury Department said the lender failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious activity to the government — including $1 billion tied to national security-related and other priority illicit finance risks. Treasury officials said the bank "prioritized its revenues" in building its compliance programs and leaned on outside parties like law enforcement rather than its own internal controls, per The Guardian's reporting.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency levied a $750 million civil penalty against Bank of America — the largest in the regulator's history — tied to failures to address shortcomings identified in a 2024 cease-and-desist order.
Against that backdrop, the Federal Reserve's action against American Express raises the same question: How many suspicious transactions slipped through, and who was on the other end of them?
DEBANKING FIGHT COLLIDES WITH AML ENFORCEMENT
The American Express action also comes amid a separate but related battle over debanking. On Wednesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced a new initiative to address what it called the debanking of businesses and individuals based on constitutionally protected rights — including support for President Trump, MAGA, pro-life causes, and industries disfavored by the Left.
The CFPB's move followed an OCC report titled "Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans," which found that the nine largest national banks under its supervision — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank, and BMO Bank — maintained policies or engaged in practices that denied or restricted financial access based on Americans' political or religious beliefs or otherwise lawful business activities.
"It is appalling that these banks targeted American consumers for their political, social, or religious beliefs that did not align with the Biden Administration or its leftist allies," CFPB Acting Director Mark Paoletta said in a statement. "Many of those targeted were supporters of President Trump. These thuggish tactics, which were also a defining feature of the Biden-Chopra CFPB, have no place in America."
Paoletta added that the CFPB will "fully investigate whether the institutions featured in OCC's report and others have complied with federal consumer financial laws and take appropriate action."
The OCC report included excerpts from bank documents, including emails, that it said revealed the discriminatory decision-making. Entire sectors were targeted, most notably firearms, oil and gas, and tobacco, according to the CFPB.
WHAT IT MEANS FOR EVERYDAY AMERICANS
For ordinary Americans, the stakes are twofold. First, a financial system that fails to flag suspicious money flows is a system that can be exploited by cartels, terror financiers, and foreign adversaries — the same actors the federal government claims to be hunting. Second, the same mega-banks that allegedly failed to catch billions in dirty money are the ones that found time to flag customers for their politics.
The American Express enforcement action does not yet carry a publicly disclosed dollar figure or a named independent monitor. The Federal Reserve said the action addresses the firm's failure to sufficiently detect and report certain suspicious activity related to money laundering, among other things.
What is not yet known is the specific volume of suspicious transactions American Express failed to report, whether the Fed's action includes a civil penalty, and whether the company has agreed to a consent order. Those details were not released in the initial announcement.
The Bank of America case offers a template for what may follow. That consent order required the bank to hire an independent third party to review past transactions, identify suspicious activity it failed to detect at the time, and report those transactions to Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The bank said the $1.2 billion hit would reduce third-quarter net income by approximately 17 cents a share.
Shares of Bank of America were expected to underperform at the open following the fine, according to UBS analyst Erika Najarian, who noted there was no asset cap attached — a regulatory penalty that would limit how large the bank could grow.
Our Take
Here's what the Fed's action against American Express really tells us: the same financial establishment that spent the Biden years lecturing Americans about "disinformation" and "extremism" apparently couldn't be bothered to file the paperwork when actual criminals moved money through its systems.
Bank of America missed $5 billion in suspicious activity. That's not a clerical error. That's a business model. Treasury said the bank "prioritized its revenues" — and now the American Express action suggests the rot runs deeper than one boardroom.
Meanwhile, the CFPB is finally doing what it should have done years ago: naming the banks that debanked Trump supporters, pro-lifers, and gun dealers. The OCC report isn't speculation — it quotes the banks' own emails. These institutions picked winners and losers based on politics, and they did it while letting cartel cash slide through the back door.
Patriots should be asking one question: if these banks couldn't catch billions in money laundering, what else did they miss — and who paid them to look the other way?
