Live: Bank of America fined $US1.2 billion for anti-money laundering failures

The local share market is eyeing falls at the open, after a slightly negative finish on Wall Street.Bank of America has been hit with a $US1.2 billion ($1.7 billion) fine by US Treasury for anti-money laundering failures.Follow the day's financial news and insights from our specialist business reporters on our live blog.Disclaimer: this blog is not intended as investment advice.Wed 14 Oct 2026 at 7:53amWed 14 Oct 2026 at 7:53amMarket snapshotASX SPI 200 futures: -0.3% to 8,788 pointsAustralian dollar: flat at 69.60 US centsWall Street: S&P 500 flat, Dow -0.35%, Nasdaq -0.31%Europe: Dax -0.1%, FTSE -0.1%, Eurostoxx50 -0.5%Spot gold: +0.6% to $US4,197/ounceOil: Brent -1% to $US105.63/barrelIron ore: +0.1% to $US90.70/tonneBitcoin: +0.4% to$US83,331Prices current at around 7:50am AEDTLive updates from major ASX indices:Wed 14 Oct 2026 at 8:26amWed 14 Oct 2026 at 8:26amThe Business: NAB's business suveyBusiness is down in the dumps with the NAB's September business survey showing confidence is now well below its long-run average. Economic uncertainty — both locally and offshore — is weighing on boss's minds, but they're also copping ever-rising costs. And, economists say, if costs pressures continue to build in the economy, the RBA will have little choice but to raise interest rates again on Melbourne Cup Day.Sally Auld is the NAB's chief economist.Wed 14 Oct 2026 at 8:17amWed 14 Oct 2026 at 8:17amMore on the OpenAI spyingUS federal agents arrested a Saudi national employed as an OpenAI engineer and charged him with installing a hidden audio recording device in an executive conference room at the AI company, the Justice Department said.OpenAI had used its internal AI models to identify the individual responsible for planting the device and to trace its origins, it said in an X post:"At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was terminated."The company said it referred the matter to the FBI, which is continuing to investigate.OpenAI faces scrutiny over security incidents involving its AI systems. Reuters and other outlets recently reported that the company told investors its annualised revenue for September was almost $50 billion, down from what it had signalled earlier.OpenAI said on Friday it fired three researchers after an investigation found they had violated company policies on handling sensitive information.The statement came after the researchers, Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak and Mikita Balesni, published a letter detailing the circumstances of their dismissal and arguing that the abrupt firings could create uncertainty among employees and undermine a culture that had allowed researchers to raise safety concerns.It comes as more than 300 scientists from across the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania call for greater AI safety measures in an open letter.With ReutersWed 14 Oct 2026 at 8:13amWed 14 Oct 2026 at 8:13amUS arrests Saudi national over audio recording device at OpenAIThe US Justice Department said that a Saudi national had been arrested for allegedly installing a hidden audio recording device at OpenAI in San Francisco.Here's OpenAI's statement, which has been remarkably spun into something of an advertisement. Also, it appears the company reported this spying faster than its previous reporting to the Australian government:Wed 14 Oct 2026 at 8:02amWed 14 Oct 2026 at 8:02amBank of America fined $1.2b for failing to police suspicious activityBank of America has been fined $1.21 billion by the US government for what it called widespread failures to properly police potential money laundering and other illicit activity at the nation's second-largest bank.The Treasury Department said the fine, the third-largest in department history, is due to the bank's failure to report over $5 billion in suspicious activity to the government, including $1 billion in activity that posed national security-related and other priority illicit finance risks.“Financial institutions are on the front lines of protecting our economic and national security. When a bank of this size fails to meet its anti-money laundering and sanctions obligations, the consequences extend far beyond its own walls, exposing the entire US financial system to significant illicit finance risks," said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.The Treasury said the bank "prioritized its revenues" in building compliance programs, and overly relied on inquiries from outside parties like law enforcement and other financial institutions instead of its own internal controls.“Financial crime compliance is serious, and we are responsible for getting it right," said a Bank of America spokesperson in a statement. "We have invested billions of dollars in technology and dedicated thousands of employees to combat financial crime, and our team is far along with and committed to completing the work required to address the issues raised by our regulators."The spokesperson added that the bank's third-quarter results due for release on Wednesday will include a non-tax-deductible charge of $1.2 billion, which will reduce quarterly net income by approximately 17 cents a share. Shares were down 1.8% in after-hours trading.As part of the fine, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency levied a $750 million civil penalty against the lender, the largest ever for the regulator.The regulator said the bank's compliance program was "deficient and ineffective," and its transaction monitoring system caused the bank to delay in filing suspicious activity reports on billions of dollars of transactions.In addition, the bank paid an $11.6 million fine to the Office of Foreign Assets Control for over 400 apparent violations of numerous sanctions programs. The Treasury said the bank mistakenly processed millions of dollars in payments that violated sanctions programs targeting countries including Russia and Iran.The fine comes days after American Express was also hit with a $350 million penalty for similar anti-money laundering shortcomings.With ReutersWed 14 Oct 2026 at 7:45amWed 14 Oct 2026 at 7:45amWall Street and Europe lacklustre as tech bite continuesGood morning, selamat pagi and buenos dias!The S&P500 was flat, Nasdaq and Dow Jones slightly in the red. It was a similar look in Europe and London trading.Investors are digesting a host of banking results - while we're hearing the Bank of America faces $1.2 billion fine for allegedly violating money laundering and sanctions laws.And the Kospi's decline yesterday sending waves across Wall Street's listed chip stocks as well.Lots to get into so fire up that coffee maker and let's get cracking