American Express shares trade lower on pre-market Nasdaq as banking arm receives $350 million penalty notice

Global financial services firm American Express’ shares are in focus of investors on Friday, October 9, as the company’s banking subsidiary received a $350 million penalty notice from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for deficiencies in the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance program.

Nasdaq data showed that American Express (Amex) share price was trading 0.37% lower at $306 apiece during the pre-market session ahead of the opening bell on October 9, as investors focused on the latest penalty notice.

OCC identified that American Express National Bank, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amex, had failed to establish and maintain a BSA and AML compliance program, which is designed to assure and monitor compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act and its implementing regulations.

The agency also found that the bank failed to tailor its risk assessment to its business activities, while focusing on risks in its relatively narrow demand deposit account products and services and insufficiently on the risks in its more dominant credit and charge card products.

OCC is an independent federal bureau of the US Treasury Department which charters, regulates, and supervises all national banks, federal savings associations, and federal branches and agencies of foreign banks.

“The bank experienced systemic breakdowns in its suspicious activity monitoring and reporting processes, resulting in a failure to timely identify, evaluate, and sufficiently report approximately $13 billion of suspected trade-based money laundering activity that took place over the past decade,” as per the official statement from the OCC.

In a separate release on Thursday, the US Federal Reserve Board announced that it has launched an enforcement action against American Express Co. to address the firm's failure to sufficiently detect and report certain suspicious activity related to money laundering.

“The Board's action will help ensure that the firm operates in compliance with all U.S. laws and regulations,” as per the US Fed notice.

What did Amex say?

In response to the penalty notice, American Express said that the company is committed to addressing the concerns outlined by the federal agencies and has also identified areas for improvement in the Financial Crimes Compliance program through internal and external reviews.

“American Express takes its responsibility to combat financial crimes seriously. We are fully committed to addressing the concerns outlined by the FRB and OCC and continuing to strengthen our Financial Crimes Compliance program,” according to the official statement released on October 9.

Amex said that it also investigated transactions that were identified as being processed over the company’s network by individuals misusing its products for the purchase of goods and services.

The same information was reported to law enforcement, and the company took the appropriate action.

The company also said that the civil money penalty was reserved for prior periods and it will not impact American Express’ full-year guidance for 2026, and is not expected to affect the 2027 guidance.

American Express share performance

Nasdaq data showed that American Express share price has delivered nearly 76% returns to investors in the last five years, but the stock has lost 5% of its value in the past one-year period.

On a year-to-date (YTD) basis, the company’s stock has lost 17% in 2026 and is down 3% in the last six months. The exchange data also showed that American Express shares have dropped 4.2% in the last one-month, but were trading 1% higher on a five-session basis.

Shares of American Express surged to their 52-week high of $387.49 apiece, while the 52-week low was at $290.97 apiece.

The company’s market capitalisation (m-cap) was at $205.46 billion as of the stock market close on Thursday, October 9, 2026.