On July 25, 2023, the OCC announced a $15 million civil money penalty against American Express National Bank (American Express) for failing to govern and oversee a third-party affiliate and for violations of regulations relating to certain efforts to retain small business customers. The OCC penalty has been paid to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
The OCC found, where the American Express neither admitted nor denied, that in the period 2015 to 2017, as part of large scale efforts to retain small business customers, the American Express:
Failed to properly govern and oversee the efforts of a third-party affiliate utilized to retain such customers, including the third-party affiliate’s call monitoring and documentation processes and its tracking and monitoring of customer complaints;
Failed to gather employer identification numbers for certain of such customers and properly maintain records regarding compliance with the Customer Identification Program (“CIP”) regulations; and
Failed to properly maintain records related to its effort to retain such customers and, later, produce them in response to OCC requests.
According to the OCC, American Express violated CIP regulations and recklessly engaged in unsafe or unsound practices.
Read the OCC’s announcement here.
The consent order can be found here.