American Express National Bank will pay the OCC $350 million over anti-money-laundering failures

American Express National Bank agreed to a $350 million civil money penalty and a cease-and-desist order from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency after examiners found Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering program failures, including about $13 billion of suspected trade-based money laundering that was not timely reported over the past decade.

The OCC announced the bank order on Oct. 8, 2026, in coordination with a concurrent Federal Reserve cease-and-desist order against American Express Company and American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. The holding-company action addresses enterprise-wide anti-money-laundering weaknesses, especially at the national-bank subsidiary.

American Express said in a Form 8-K (AccNo 0000004962-26-000376) that the company and Travel Related Services consented to the Fed order and that American Express National Bank consented to the OCC order to resolve previously disclosed regulatory reviews of parts of its financial-crimes compliance program. The bank agreed to pay the $350 million OCC penalty. A portion was reserved in earlier periods, the company said, and the charge does not change the full-year 2026 guidance it had already given. The consent orders do not impose an asset cap, and remediation costs are not expected to affect 2027 guidance, according to the same filing.

What examiners said broke down

The OCC said American Express National Bank failed to keep a Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering program reasonably designed to monitor compliance. It cited inadequate resources, including staff without enough expertise; systemic internal-control gaps; weak independent testing; and weak training for employees and directors.

Risk assessment was another fault line. Examiners said the bank concentrated on risks in relatively narrow demand-deposit products and services and paid too little attention to risks in its larger credit- and charge-card businesses. Customer due diligence and customer-identification procedures contributed to monitoring and reporting failures, the OCC said, and suspicious-activity systems broke down enough that about $13 billion of suspected trade-based money-laundering activity over the past decade was not timely identified, evaluated, and sufficiently reported.

"The OCC expects banks of American Express's size and complexity to devote sufficient resources to ensure compliance with laws and regulations designed to detect and prevent money laundering, which are critical to both economic and national security," Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said in the agency release. The OCC said the penalty will go to the U.S. Treasury.

How the Fed framed the parent

The Federal Reserve Board said its action is meant to push the firm to detect and report suspicious activity related to money laundering and to fix significant deficiencies in how the enterprise-wide anti-money-laundering program was implemented. The consent order, Docket No. 26-052-B-HC, is entered without American Express or Travel Related Services admitting or denying the Board's allegations. The order notes that New York Fed supervisors had flagged weaknesses in transaction monitoring, fraud referral processes, third-party risk assessment, and financial-crimes risk management, and that the companies have cooperated and begun remediation.

American Express shares last traded at $308.10, up $3.85, or 1.27%, on the New York Stock Exchange, according to quote data on cnbc.com after Thursday's U.S. cash session.