NEW YORK— A new study reveals that the U.S. accounted for 90% of global bank fines imposed in 2024.
Finbold's 2024 Bank Fines Report found that 57 fines larger than $500,000 were issued to banks worldwide in 2024 due to a wide range of violations for a total penalty sum of $4.5 billion.
According to Finbold research, anti-money laundering (AML) breaches were the most common violation, and Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank) was forced to pay $3.09 billion over related failures.
TD Bank’s fine accounted for 68.67% of the amount levied in 2024, while the U.S. regulators collected $4.08 billion—slightly more than 90% of the cumulative global amount, Finbold said.
U.K. And Sweden Lead Europe
British and Swedish regulators were responsible for the largest fines outside the U.S. In the U.K., HSBC Bank was penalized with $74.12 million for failing to implement depositor protection, while in Sweden, Klarna Bank AB was compelled to pay $46 million over AML issues.
“Finland, whose fines totaled $35 million, found itself in the fourth stop. The country’s enforcement is also notable for involving Nordea Bank’s failures to prevent money laundering and other criminal activities, as revealed by the 2016 Panama Papers,” Finbold said.
China Imposed Only $31 Million In Bank Fines In 2024
China may be the biggest surprise of the report, Finbold said.
“Despite boasting the world’s second-biggest economy by nominal gross domestic product, it was only fourth in the total number of cases, at three, and fifth in the total penalty amount, at $31.22 million,” Finbold said.
“In the U.S., the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insures just over 4,000 such corporations, aligning the American case proportion with the dominance of the country’s banking sector. Despite imposing substantially lower and fewer fines, China is also cited as having more than 4,000 banking institutions,” noted As Andreja Stojanovic, a co-author of the research.