A $100 million civil money penalty (CMP) was assessed against Capital One, N.A., and Capital One Bank (USA), N.A., both in Virginia, by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) this month due to previous and additional Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering (BSA/AML) program deficiencies, the OCC announced Tuesday.
The penalty addresses violations of a 2015 cease-and-desist (C&D) consent order by OCC to correct BSA/AML problems as well as new violations that have arisen since. The new C&D order cites deficiencies by the bank (OCC uses “bank” in referring to both institutions collectively) in risk assessment, remote deposit capture and correspondent banking processes; and failure to file suspicious activity reports (SARs).
“The Bank has undertaken corrective action, and is committed to taking all necessary and appropriate steps to remedy the deficiencies identified by the OCC, and to enhance the Bank’s BSA/AML compliance program,” the order states.
The 2015 order found that the bank “failed to adopt and implement a compliance program that adequately covered the required BSA/AML program elements due to an inadequate system of internal controls and ineffective independent testing,” the order states, and “failed to identify significant volumes of suspicious activity and file the required SARs concerning suspicious customer activities.” The October 2018 order says that following issuance of the previous order, the bank also failed to file additional SARs as required and initiated wire transfer transactions which contained inadequate or incomplete information, both in violation of federal requirements.
The order says the this fine settles the CMP proceeding related to the known violations enumerated in the order, but it doesn’t prevent the OCC from initiating other types of enforcement action in the future regarding those issues.
OCC Assesses $100 Million Civil Money Penalty Against Capital One