THE BANK OF AMERICA OCC CONSENT ORDER INCLUDES A TRANSACTION MONITORING LOOK-BACK; WILL IT RESULT IN THE CLOSURE OF THE BANK'S CARIBBEAN CORRESPONDENT ACCOUNTS, DUE TO RAMPANT MONEY LAUNDERING THROUGH CBI PAYMENTS?

If you are like me, you read the entire 43-page B of A Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) Consent Order (a/k/a Cease & Desist) closely, and found most of the regulator's requirements to be boilerplate, when it comes to compelling a bank with an ineffective AML program to conform to Banking Best Practices. There was one item, however, that may eventually cause some sea changes at B of A; the Transaction Monitoring Look-Back that appears at Article IX, on page 15-17.

While we understand that Bank staff have made it clear unofficially that they are not concerned with any exposure, regarding the correspondent accounts it maintains for the five East Caribbean states, Antigua, St. Kitts, Dominica, St. Lucia & Grenada, that have CBI passport sales programs, the Look-Back is certain to uncover a large number of transactions that are suspicious on their face, and where SARs should have been, but were not, filed of record.

The question is how far the third-party, designated as "Program Consultant," will take that information. Will there be a recommendation to restrict, or even close, some or all of those correspondent accounts servicing the Caribbean, where CBI payments in US Dollars, transit and are cleared? Given the bank's obvious reluctance to close those accounts, and lose that lucrative business, the question becomes whether the money laundering risks outweigh the rewards, and what the Program Consultant does in 2025.