TD Bank will pay over $3 billion in penalties after ‘serious failures’ in its US AML program

The news: TD Bank has accepted full responsibility for major anti-money-laundering (AML) deficiencies and agreed to pay a total of over $3 billion to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), The US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Federal Reserve, per The Wall Street Journal.

  • This fine marks the largest civil penalty issued against a bank in the history of the US Treasury.

How we got here: The DOJ found that TD Bank allowed three different criminal groups to move $670 million through its accounts over the last several years. In response to the bank’s guilty plea, Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “By making its services convenient for criminals, TD Bank became one.”