The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Thursday released a consent order against Community Federal Savings Bank, citing significant deficiencies in the lender's Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering compliance programme. The action was disclosed in OCC news release NR-OCC-2026-40 and filed under Docket AA-ENF-2025-21.
The OCC concluded that the bank had not established and maintained a reasonably designed BSA/AML compliance programme, citing systemic breakdowns in internal controls, weak independent testing and weak BSA staffing. Community Federal, headquartered in New York, is a federal savings association; the OCC found that since 2020 it had significantly expanded its payment processing capabilities relative to its size, including cross-border activity involving foreign financial institutions.
COMPLIANCE PROGRAMME FAILURES
According to the OCC, the deficiencies encompassed violations of 12 CFR 21.21, which requires banks to maintain a written BSA compliance programme reasonably designed to assure and monitor adherence to anti-money laundering laws. Regulators also flagged failures under 12 CFR 163.180(d), the rule governing the timely filing of Suspicious Activity Reports on transactions that may indicate potential wrongdoing.
A third strand of the order concerns 31 CFR 1010.520(b)(3), the FinCEN rule implementing the information-sharing requirements of Section 314(a) of the USA PATRIOT Act.
The OCC did not disclose a monetary penalty in the release. The order requires the bank to appoint a compliance committee, submit an action plan within 90 days, engage an independent consultant to assess its BSA programme, overhaul its internal controls and customer due diligence, implement a risk-based suspicious activity review programme, conduct a SAR lookback and ensure adequate BSA/AML staffing.
PROHIBITION AGAINST FORMER JPMORGAN EMPLOYEE
In the same release, the OCC announced an Order of Prohibition against Dyemond Williams, a former associate at JPMorgan Chase. The regulator said Williams made or assisted others in making unauthorised withdrawals from customer accounts, causing the bank a loss of at least USD 38,500; the order prohibits Williams from participating in the affairs of any federally insured depository institution without regulatory approval.
The bank is required to remedy the identified deficiencies under the timeframes set out in the order. The order and accompanying materials are available on the regulator's website, alongside the wider list of May enforcement actions.
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