The United States has announced more than $1.21 billion in regulatory penalties against Bank of America over failures to comply with anti-money laundering requirements and financial sanctions, with Somalia among the countries covered by a separate settlement involving hundreds of apparent sanctions violations.
The US Department of the Treasury announced the enforcement actions on October 13, 2026, citing weaknesses in the bank’s monitoring of suspicious financial transactions and its compliance procedures.
The measures involve the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
OFAC said Bank of America agreed to pay approximately $11.66 million to settle potential civil liability for 475 apparent violations of sanctions programmes involving Russia, Belarus, Iran, Burma, Somalia, narcotics trafficking and global terrorism.
The violations occurred between September 2021 and April 2025, and the settlement covered transactions with a combined value of approximately $14.83 million.
According to OFAC, the suspected violations included payments processed through banks subject to restrictions, failures to properly prioritise alerts involving customers whose identifying details matched those of sanctioned individuals, delays in updating sanctions watchlists and errors involving business accounts associated with blocked persons.
The agency said these compliance failures allowed payments to be processed in apparent violation of several US sanctions programmes.
However, the published enforcement announcement did not identify specific Somali individuals, businesses or organisations involved in the transactions.
The inclusion of Somalia among the countries covered by the sanctions programmes does not, by itself, establish that a particular Somali person or institution was responsible for wrongdoing.
Separately, FinCEN imposed a $1.2 billion penalty after determining that Bank of America had failed to adequately address and report significant suspicious financial activity.
US authorities said the bank had failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions in a timely manner, including activity associated with potential national security risks, money laundering and fraud.
The OCC also assessed a $750 million civil penalty over deficiencies in the bank’s anti-money laundering compliance programme. That amount is credited toward the FinCEN penalty rather than added to it as a separate charge, while the OFAC settlement is additional.
The combined announced penalties therefore total slightly more than $1.21 billion.
The case highlights the extensive compliance obligations imposed on US financial institutions that process international payments.
Banks are required to monitor transactions, investigate suspicious activity, screen customers and intermediaries against sanctions lists, and submit reports to the relevant authorities when required.
For Somalia, the reference is relevant because it appears within the scope of the US sanctions programmes cited in the settlement.
Nevertheless, the Treasury announcement does not establish that the Somali government or any named Somali institution was implicated in the bank’s violations.
Further details would be needed to determine whether any specific transactions had a direct connection to Somali individuals or entities.