Important Takeaways:
- America’s seventh biggest bank will shut 38 branches as it continues to roil from massive penalties related to failures in its anti-money laundering controls.
- TD Bank has filed notice with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to close locations across 10 states on June 5.
- Closures will include six each in New Jersey and Massachusetts, five in New York, four in New Hampshire and Maine, and three in Pennsylvania and Florida, according to The Philadelphia Business Journal.
- Of the bank’s roughly 1,100 branches across the US, it also plans to shutter two locations each in Connecticut, Virginia and South Carolina, and one in Washington D.C.
- It comes as banks are shutting branches across the US, leaving communities without access to vital services. Experts are warning that 2025 could be the worst year yet for closures.
- The bank has been in cost-cutting mode since an investigation into its anti-money laundering compliance efforts ended in October with a $3.2 billion fine.
- The investigation revealed that failures in its compliance efforts allowed criminals to launder millions in proceeds from fentanyl and narcotics trafficking.
- It also found that drug traffickers were able to bribe TD employees in some US branches, Reuters reported.
- TD became the largest bank in US history to plead guilty to violating a federal law aimed at preventing money laundering.
- It comes as major US banks shut more than 100 locations in just three weeks earlier this year.
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