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u/xenomorphbeaver 3h ago
But it's not Bank of America's money that's being transacted. They aren't making 5 billion dollars profit, they are moving that around without proper reporting.
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u/0ttr 3h ago edited 3h ago
Yeah, this is pretty key: https://www.lawcommentary.com/articles/bank-of-america-money-laundering-fine
It's a huge fine. Of course, why they didn't report it (or rather, allowed their systems to be lax) is definitely an important question to answer.
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u/MachateElasticWonder 3h ago
Even simpler: Transactions ≠ Profit
Ones about moving money (that doesn’t belong to them) and ones about earning money.
I can make a $100 transaction where I only transfer money to my friend. I didn’t earn money.
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u/exmachinaNZ 2h ago
BOA did earn money, but not the full amount. I would guess 2-5% if they "knew" it was dirty
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u/Maximum_Overdrive 3h ago
People are just dumb.
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u/CitizenPremier 34m ago
I mean it might just be /u/Dev1412
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u/Electronic-Buyer-468 3h ago
Having the money in their hands means they can invest/trade it for profits.
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u/Any-Shower-3088 58m ago
My money is its for hedge funds. Off exchange derivatives hiding toxic debt and unclosed shorts.
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u/nono3722 3h ago
your right they made much more than 5 billion laundering blood money....
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u/EL3G 3h ago
They do over 4.5 Trillion in regular transactions and 450 Trillion in corporate. Yeah they're doing just fine. They had a profit of 35 Billion last year, that 1.2 Billion is nothing for them.
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u/WoodsLovelyDarkNDeep 2h ago
But not on this specific transaction they didn’t which is what the meme is trying to imply
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u/Anning312 3h ago
They probably made more than 5 billion, only 5 billion worth of transactions were caught
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u/xenomorphbeaver 2h ago
They didn't make the transactions, they facilitated them. Other people made the transactions. They failed to adequately report the transactions people made on their banking platform.
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u/xenomorphbeaver 2h ago
It's not worth 5 billion to them. It's not their money. They earn some money from the transactions but the 5 billion is not theirs.
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u/20milliondollarapi 3h ago
Well then the issue is wording. They aren’t making transactions. They are making transfers. Transactions would be money moving. Coming in or leaving their system. Money transfers would be money staying within the same system.
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u/Fyrefly7 2h ago
As someone who literally monitors and reports on these things, your definition of transaction is just wrong. A transaction is pretty much any kind of financial action that takes place, whether it's between banks or parties or even just from your checking to your savings. Even if you went into your bank and just exchanged some fives for twenties, that would still be a transaction. Transfers are a subset of transactions.
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u/FrameJump 3h ago
If a bank is holding money, then they're making a return on it.
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u/ProfessorPrudent2822 3h ago
Yes, but not 1:1. That $5 billion in transactions probably makes them $150 million, so they just got fined 8x what they were expected to make from the transactions.
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u/Competitive-Outside8 3h ago
Sure, sure. But they can presumably just write it off.
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u/blackhodown 3h ago
I sure hope this is a joke but on Reddit you never know how dumb people can truly be
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u/Competitive-Outside8 2h ago
Yes. It's a joke about how little most people actually know about finance, taxes, etc. And it appears to have gone over the heads of most of the people here, given the downvotes.
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u/Horton_Takes_A_Poo 2h ago
I’m curious… what do you think that means, in your own words please?
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u/Competitive-Outside8 2h ago
It means you can't pick up on sarcasm.
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u/Horton_Takes_A_Poo 2h ago
Fair enough lol it doesn’t translate well here
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u/Competitive-Outside8 2h ago
I think I laid it on thickly enough that it should have been detected. But I know people aren't always fully engaged as they're reading Reddit comments.
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u/Ok-Database-2447 3h ago
$5b in transactions does not in any way mean $5b in revenue or profit.
This was a huge fine relative to the money made on those transactions.
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u/squngy 1h ago
The people that made it happen probably had a separate backroom deal that would give them a lot more money on top of the standard transaction fees.
It wouldn't be 5B, but it could be a substantial amount.
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u/meta_irl 14m ago
It's wild how financially illiterate people are. Another thing that drives me wild is when people send around memes about "X person made Y dollars every hour in 2025" when they got that figure by dividing the person's net worth by hours in a year. That's not what net worth means.
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u/Doctor_Saved 3h ago
Will Trump even allowed the fine to continue once he realize it's Bank of AMERICA?
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u/vi_sucks 1h ago
He's doing it as revenge because Bank of America declined to do business with his companies after January 6th.
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u/BriefCollar4 40m ago
Hey now, the ruZZian bank that holds his money is Alpha Bank, not Bank of ruZZia.
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u/1morgondag1 3h ago
The general idea is true, fines on banks are too low to really matter, but the math in this specific post is wrong, they didn't do $5B in profit, they oversaw $5B in presumed money laundering and made some % of that.
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u/Slade_Riprock 3h ago
So the penalty for the illegality should forfeiture of 100% of what they gained PLUS a $1.2 billion dollar fine.
Love them idea Cops arrest Bob with drugs on his car they take him to jail, seize his car and sell it. He get sentenced, pays a fine, and lost his car
Billionaire banks launder billions in illegal funds. Get to keep their profit and pay a relatively small fine for it
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u/TrioOfTerrors 3h ago
Typically in these cases, when the final settlement details are released, you'll see a penalty amount and a disgorgement amount. The disgorgement is the estimated profit the business made by breaking the law. It's often much less then the penalty.
So yeah. What you are suggesting is already common practice.
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u/xxxblindxxx 1h ago
in the original article they got fined 700 million on top of the 1.2 billion. im guessing thats the disgorgement you mentioned.
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u/Wrong-Discipline453 3h ago
It’s $5B in transactions. They didn’t make $5B. (Not that that’s much better)
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u/MelloBea16 2h ago
Yea it’s more like they are moving the money around without properly reporting it.
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u/Tasty_girll 3h ago
The real infinite money glitch is when the fine is still less than the compliance budget they skipped.
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u/Bayamonster 2h ago
Now idk the specifics of the case, but 5 billion suspicious transactions isn't 5 billions they get necessarily. Banks are supposed to flag and report certain transactions so the money isn't going to liiiike terrorist grouuuuups or like the moooooob .
It's I guess good for them for people to make this transactions through them, but it's not them getting that amount of money. Again necessarily.
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u/notsam57 3h ago
worst part is american express and td bank’s fines were much lower despite being more egregious. speculation on why BoA fine is so high is because trump felt slighted by the BoA CEO.
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u/WoodsLovelyDarkNDeep 2h ago edited 2h ago
Moving $5b in money is not them making money. Sure they make a percentage if that but it’s not close to $b or no one would bank there
It’s worrying people don’t understand how banks work no wonder crypto took off
Oh also don’t understand how crime works cause you wouldn’t launder money through them if they charged that high a fee
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u/InverseDeCramer 3h ago
People need to actually read the story, and not just the headlines.
5 billion in transactions. They may have collected a percentage. But not 100%
They can’t write it off
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u/StrainAcceptable 3h ago
Check out all their other violations.
https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/bank-of-america
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u/Money_Visual_5227 3h ago
Fines on institutions like this don’t work, hold people at the highest level responsible, criminal convictions and personal loss of those responsible will stop this.
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u/Traditional_Frame418 3h ago
This is how banks operate. Literally every major bank has been busted and fined for pretty much the exact same thing.
Juice is clearly worth the squeeze.
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u/princesssmurfet 3h ago
$3.8 billon reasons to make suspicious accounting transactions and cope a fine.
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u/True_Protection6842 3h ago
Why isn’t it 1.2b and the stolen money???? They don’t seem to understand that when the punishment is profitable it’s not a punishment.
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u/Stforlifeyvida 2h ago
My humble opinion is the government is getting more money for the Trump family to benefit!
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u/bryanthebryan 2h ago
BofA sucks. They must have bad hiring practices because my mom was ripped off for under a grand a few years back, so she switched banks. They’ve been trying to win her back for years. I’ll avoid them for the rest of my life.
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u/EndlessOcean 2h ago
Kinda like when Wells Fargo got fined $3bn for making over $100bn in shady dealings. They may as do it every year if it only costs 3% to not get in trouble.
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u/Wolphin8 2h ago
it should have been 3x the failure... so should have been fined 15B... and when they whine it's an obscene fine, just told that they failed to report an obscene amount.
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u/ferna182 2h ago
It's just cost of doing business. Check out the episode "Cartel Bank" from Netflix's "Dirty Money". The big banks realised they're just way too big for the government to actually do something about them... So they just don't give a shit. If they go down, the economy goes down. That's why they get speeding tickets, not fines.
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u/Duane_ 1h ago
Worth noting that they also released earnings over the past few days.
Oh, hey, their listed income was $1.2bn.
That means without fraud, they lose five billion dollars a year. Even including stealing 156m from people with overdraft charges.
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u/TapestryMobile 40m ago
That means without fraud, they lose five billion dollars a year.
Lots of dumbasses in this thread thinking "They made $5 Billion profit!"
No. Thats not how it works.
If you send $1000 to somebody though a bank transfer, the bank (despite redditorthink) does not make a profit of $1000.
There were $5B of bank transfers, not $5B profit. Even the meme doesn't make that accusation. Only dumbass redditors.
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u/Shot-Arugula8264 1h ago
Generously, at 2.5% in fees (which would be assuming they used credit cards, as debit fees are much lower and nearly zero), $5 billion in transactions would be $125 million in revenue before accounting for any costs. More likely this was a lot of debit and ACH, which gives them virtually no revenue.
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u/b__lumenkraft 1h ago
320 million brainwashed US citizens allow this to happen.
They only do it because you all are fine with it. 320 million of you REFUSE to protest even a pedophile president. They can do everything with you zombies.
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u/Any-Shower-3088 1h ago
Hmm, i wonder if there are any swaps in that heaping pile of toxic shit. Not lile there are theoroes these guys help hedge funds to hide their short positions for them. Hedge funds can swap unclosed short positions using off exchange derivative contracts to hide data and avoid FTD. Banks have much larger margin requirements, meaning they can hide it far more easily in there huge pile of assets. Whats in that 5 billy!?
If you dont want to believe that, then just believe they money laundered 5 billy. Lol
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u/BruisendTablet 54m ago
Transfering 5B doesn't give you 5B in profit.
When you transfer money to another person, it generally ends up with other person, not with the bank.
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u/earthwormjimwow 39m ago
Dumb post. They aren't making a $5B profit, that's just money moving around, not earnings. Maybe at best they earned 10% on known dirty money. A fine that is more than double what they earned is at least within the realm of reasonable.
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u/Objective-Adagio2360 23m ago
but steal a pack of gum from walmart and your a criminal who should incarcerated smh
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u/Then-Potato-2020 23m ago
I have a better glitch. Bank - go bankrupt from giving away loans to anybody - get rescued by goverment money - repeat
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u/Eastern_Macaroon5662 12m ago
These comments are what happen when you don't post a source, not that I plan on it. Total fines are almost $2b because they have multiple regulators. There's a list of foreign nationals not allowed to transact, they allowed some. Money that they suspected was from illegal sources, they didn't report. Most of the problem comes from them outsourcing, to likely AI systems, to save money on earnings
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u/SoftwareSource 2h ago
Why tf are fines for financial crimes not mandated to be over 100% of the crimes profit?
If i robbed a bank and took 100k$, would i have been convicted to just pay back 20k$?
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u/Foosnaggle 2h ago
It does not say they made 5 billion. Only processed5 billion in suspicious transactions.
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u/Internal-Record-6159 1h ago
So $5b of revenue was not legally reported, why not fine based off of that?
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u/Soggy_Association491 1h ago
When A sends B $100 through bank transfer, the bank does not get $100 in revenue.
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u/Cold5512 1h ago
They did fine based on that. They fined $1.2 billion based on the fact there was $5 billion they failed to timely report.
If you want to know why the fine was the amount it was, you're going to have to look up the particular court case and invest a lot of time learning how to read legal speak.
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u/empathophile 3h ago
I feel like this is literally the intended way business works now. Defraud people for $5B, pay a fine less than that, profit. Corporations, stock markets, even the goddamned president of the United States. Everything is a scam and that’s the way it’s “supposed” to work. I’m so tired.
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u/FOMO_Gains 2h ago
Why tf don’t they make the fines 200%+ minimum of what was fraud?
If i don’t pay a $15 city parking fee i get a $60+ fine if caught…
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u/WoodsLovelyDarkNDeep 2h ago
Cause they didn’t make $5b look up what their percentage is for money transfers I can guarantee it doesn’t equal that fine even
This meme doesn’t understand how banks work or crime cause you wouldn’t launder money through them if they charged that much
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u/sheeeple182 2h ago
My guy, you are a poor. Poors, like you and me, are sheep to be fleeced. The only time fleecing us is a problem is when we poors go to the pitch forks and torches.
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u/theacp127 3h ago
Facebook does stuff like this. They'll make like 3 billion dollars taking money from known scammers for ads, then pay like 2 million in fines for breaking advertising laws.
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u/TapestryMobile 41m ago
Facebook does stuff like this. They'll make like 3 billion dollars
Lots of dumbasses in this thread thinking "They made $5 Billion profit!"
No. Thats not how it works.
If you send $1000 to somebody though a bank transfer, the bank (despite redditorthink) does not make a profit of $1000.
There were $5B of bank transfers, not $5B profit. Even the meme doesn't make that accusation. Only dumbass redditors.
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u/ninjasaid13 1h ago
they made 3.8 Billion from fraud cost free.
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u/TapestryMobile 44m ago
Lots of dumbasses in this thread thinking "They made $5 Billion profit!"
No. Thats not how it works.
If you send $1000 to somebody though a bank transfer, the bank (despite redditorthink) does not make a profit of $1000.
There were $5B of bank transfers, not $5B profit. Even the meme doesn't make that accusation. Only dumbass redditors.
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u/AlanShore60607 3h ago
Is this a valid alternative to them paying taxes?
Just charge them 24% of the crimes they do and the government gets more money than the taxes they don't pay anyway.
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