USAA hit with $140m fine from FinCEN for Bank Secrecy Act violations
USAA Federal Savings Bank (USAA FSB) has been hit with a $140 million civil money penalty by the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for what it refers to as “willful violations” of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).
FinCEN fines USAA $140m
FinCEN says the US financial services firm admitted that it failed to implement and maintain an anti-money laundering (AML) programme that met the minimum requirements of the BSA from at least January 2016 through to April 2021.
USAA FSB also admitted to failing to accurately report in a timely manner thousands of suspicious transactions to FinCEN, “resulting in millions of dollars in suspicious transactions flowing through the US financial system without appropriate reporting”.
FinCEN says this included customers using personal accounts for alleged criminal activity.
“As its customer base and revenue grew in recent years, USAA FSB willfully failed to ensure that its compliance programme kept pace,” says FinCEN’s acting director Himamauli Das.
“USAA FSB also received ample notice and opportunity to remediate its inadequate AML programme, but repeatedly failed to do so.”
USAA FSB will pay a total of $140 million to the US Treasury for the BSA violations, with $80 million representing FinCEN’s penalty and $60 million as a result of a similar case brought by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). FinCEN agreed to credit the $60 million civil penalty imposed by the OCC as “many of the facts and circumstances underlying the OCC’s civil penalty also form the basis of FinCEN’s Consent Order”.
“Today’s action signals that growth and compliance must be paired, and AML programme deficiencies, especially deficiencies identified by federal regulators, must be promptly and effectively addressed,” Das adds.
