Squeri issued the statement on the same day the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Reserve Board issued consent orders with American Express and some of its subsidiaries.
The OCC said in a Thursday press release that it issued a cease-and-desist order and a $350 million civil money penalty against American Express National Bank after finding that the bank failed to establish and maintain an adequate Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance program.
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The deficiencies identified by OCC included inadequate resources for the program, failure to tailor BSA/AML risk assessment to business activities and systemic breakdowns in suspicious activity monitoring and reporting processes, according to the release.
“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 release.
The Federal Reserve Board said in a Thursday press release that it issued an enforcement action against American Express Company to address the firm’s failure to sufficiently detect and report suspicious activity related to money laundering as well as deficiencies in how the company’s enterprisewide AML program was implemented.
The Fed’s cease-and-desist order names American Express Company and American Express Travel Related Services Company.
American Express said Thursday, in a press release that includes Squeri’s statement, that the banking regulators’ reviews of the company were previously disclosed.
Squeri said in the statement that over the last few years, American Express has been working with regulators to strengthen its controls and with law enforcement to provide information about transactions in which individuals misused its products.
“While we have made meaningful progress, we know there is more work to do,” Squeri said. “We will continue to work cooperatively with regulators and law enforcement and continue to build a strong and effective Financial Crimes Compliance program.”
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