American regulators collected 61% less in money laundering/sanction breach fines in 2025.
That’s according to a report Wednesday (Dec. 31) by the Financial Times (FT), which ties this decline to a more lenient approach to financial regulation under the Trump administration.
Total fines levied against companies for what the FT calls “dirty money” offenses came to a little less than $1.7 billion as of Dec. 19, the report said, citing data from compliance software provider Fenergo. Last year, that figure was $4.3 billion.
In his second term, the report added, President Donald Trump has directed financial regulators to adopt a more business-friendly stance. Since then, these watchdogs have pulled back from several investigations, including those involving cryptocurrency companies.
This decline in fines for violations of sanctions, terror finance and anti-money laundering (AML) rules came in tandem with an increase in such penalties elsewhere in the world, the FT said.
The largest increases came from France, Switzerland, the U.K., Canada and the United Arab Emirates, though this did not offset the downturn in the U.S. Total worldwide penalties in this area fell 19% year over year to $3.7 billion.
“There has definitely been a decrease in the number and magnitude of AML-based enforcement actions in the US during the past year,” said Daniel Stipano, head of AML at law firm Davis Polk and a former senior official at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
“To a large extent I believe this has been policy-driven,” Stipano said, though he noted last year’s figure was skewed by a single money-laundering case against Canada’s TD Bank, with that lender agreeing to a $3 billion penalty.
Rory Doyle, the head of financial crime at Fenergo, told the FT the decline in penalties could also be related to the 43-day government shutdown, as well as job cuts at many regulatory bodies. He added that the administration’s embrace of crypto may also have had an impact on enforcement action.
As covered here earlier this month, the administration is aiming to give the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) the ability to veto other regulators’ determinations that a bank has violated the Bank Secrecy Act.
With this proposed change, the Treasury wants to make sure that regulators focus on critical parts of banks’ anti-money laundering efforts instead of technical compliance.
Meanwhile, Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan V. Gould said at a recent meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council that the OCC aims to continue its AML reforms in 2026.
