Bank of America spent millions on anti-money-laundering tech, but not enough to avoid a $1.2B fine

Bank of America has had to spend big on IT in response to an AI security audit and findings that its anti-money-laundering (AML) controls were lacking.

The bank was fined a whopping $1.2 billion for money laundering offences this week, after banking authorities identified a lax attitude to compliance.

“We understand the seriousness of compliance, and we are responsible for getting it right,” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said on a conference call to discuss the company’s third-quarter financial results. “We have invested billions of dollars in technology and dedicated thousands of employees to combat financial crime,” he said, adding that “a couple hundred million” of that spending in the third quarter was on “remediation for the AML”.

The IT team had to spend a similar amount on fixing software vulnerabilities in its systems, a task that also required it to hire 1,000 consultants, Moynihan said.

The bank’s security vulnerabilities were revealed after the company received an early release of Claude Mythos Preview. In a report to the US House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, Anthropic said that Claude Mythos Preview “has already found thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities, including some in every major operating system and web browser.”

This article first appeared on CSO.