M&T Bank, four years and $400M later, released from enforcement action

M&T Bank has been released from an enforcement action that had required the Buffalo, N.Y., company to spend more than $400 million to upgrade its anti-money-laundering compliance systems.

The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday terminated its June 2013 written agreement with the $121 billion-asset company, according to a news release. The Fed had required M&T to improve compliance as a condition for approving its October 2015 acquisition of Hudson City Bancorp in Paramus, N.J. M&T waited more than three years for regulators to approve the Hudson City deal.

M&T’s upgrade of its compliance systems included an extraordinarily thorough review of its operations, Vice Chairman Richard Gold told the Buffalo News.

“We [reviewed] literally every single customer in the bank to better understand who they were and the type of business they conducted and what purpose,” Gold said.

Among other things, the Fed’s termination of the enforcement action lifts a ban on making acquisitions.