Bloomberg Businessweek · Oct 14, 2026 · 38m · 28m saved
With Brian Moynihan, Chairman and CEO of Bank of America · Kelly O. Kay, Partner at Heidrick & Struggles · Jeff Sanders, Partner at Heidrick & Struggles
Bank of America shares had their worst earnings day in more than a decade on October 14, after trading revenue missed estimates and the bank took a charge tied to a Treasury penalty over money-laundering and sanctions controls.
Brian Moynihan, chairman and CEO of Bank of America, told Bloomberg's Jonathan Ferro on Bloomberg Businessweek that the penalty comes from an old examination and is already paid for in the bank's costs. Investors sold the stock anyway. Brian pointed to a quarter that earned $8 billion before the charge.
"We had an examination a few years ago. We got a cease and desist order... That's resolved. It's behind us. The billion two is going through." — Brian Moynihan
Brian runs a bank with roughly $2 trillion of deposits that opened 200,000 new checking accounts in the quarter. The same episode carried Bloomberg's Mike McKee on a hot September inflation report, Bloomberg Intelligence's Mandeep Singh on AI chip demand, and two Heidrick & Struggles partners on why boards are rehiring former CEOs.
The full episode is covered here so you can skip it. 38 minutes of audio, 10 minutes of reading.
Here are the 15 insights that matter.
Key Takeaways
Brian calls the Treasury fine "resolved" and says its cost is already in Bank of America's expenses
Net interest income guidance rose to 8% for 2026 and "8% plus" for 2027
Bank of America wants a human to approve any payment an AI agent makes
Of $250 million to $300 million of AI spending this year, $100 million goes to defending against frontier models
Whether AI lending is safe depends on AI companies' revenue, not on the loans themselves, in Brian's view
AI is carrying US growth, so a slowdown in AI spending could hit consumer confidence without a recession
Anthropic's annualized revenue rose from about $9 billion in January to $65 billion, according to Mandeep Singh
A bad senior hire now costs "more than a product cycle," according to Heidrick & Struggles
1. The Fine Is Behind Us
Jonathan Ferro opened on the penalty. Brian traced it to a cease-and-desist order from an earlier regulatory examination and said the matter is settled.
Brian Moynihan says the remediation cost is already running through Bank of America's expenses
"We had an examination a few years ago. We got a cease and desist order... That's resolved. It's behind us. The billion two is going through." — Brian Moynihan
In Brian's account the "billion two" is not a fresh surprise. The bank has been carrying the cost of fixing its controls inside its normal spending, so the charge records work already under way.
