FinCEN Announces $140M Fine Against USAA FSB for Violations of Bank Secrecy Act

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has announced a $140 million civil money penalty against USAA Federal Savings Bank for “willful violations” of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).

In a press release published Thursday (March 17), FinCEN said USAA FSB has admitted it didn’t implement an anti-money laundering (AML) program that met the minimum requirements of the BSA between 2016 and April 2021.

The USAA said it willfully didn’t accurately and timely report “thousands” of suspicious transactions to FinCEN which involved suspicious financial activity, including customers using personal accounts for apparent criminal activity.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency assessed a civil penalty of $60 million for the violations.

“As its customer base and revenue grew in recent years, USAA FSB willfully failed to ensure that its compliance program kept pace, resulting in millions of dollars in suspicious transactions flowing through the U.S. financial system without appropriate reporting,” said FinCEN’s Acting Director Himamauli Das. “USAA FSB also received ample notice and opportunity to remediate its inadequate AML program, but repeatedly failed to do so.

“Today’s action signals that growth and compliance must be paired, and AML program deficiencies, especially deficiencies identified by federal regulators, must be promptly and effectively addressed.”

PYMNTS recently wrote that FinCEN had joined in supporting the Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs (REPO) task force, which is working on taking action against illicit actors making use of international finance.

See also: FinCEN Joins Multi-National Task Force on Russian-Related Finance, Sanctions

FinCEN plans to support the Treasury on this, boosting cooperation and intelligence sharing and agreeing to boost information sharing with the authorities when needed.

It will also issue an alert highlighting the importance of banks to quickly report suspicious transactions, particularly from sanctioned Russian elites and others in that sphere, in categories like real estate, luxury goods and high-value assets.

“Financial intelligence is fundamental to U.S. bilateral and multilateral efforts to trace, freeze, and seize the corrupt gains of Russian elites and their enablers,” FinCEN Acting Director Himamauli Das said.