Cash App owner Block pays $40 million fine to New York over compliance failures

Block will pay a $40 million civil fine and hire an independent monitor to settle charges by New York's financial services regulator that it failed to adequately police and stop money laundering on its Cash App mobile payment service.

Announcing the fine on Thursday, New York's Department of Financial Services faulted "critical gaps" in the Bank Secrecy Act, anti-money laundering and know-your-customer programs at Block, led by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and formerly known as Square.

Block agreed in January to pay an $80 million civil fine to settle similar charges by 48 U.S. state financial regulators.

In a statement, the Oakland, California-based payments company did not admit or deny wrongdoing, and said the New York settlement ends "all previously pending state money transmission license matters."

Apps such as Cash App and Venmo make it easy for people to transmit money.

The New York regulator said Block's alleged shortfalls included inadequate customer due diligence, and inadequate risk-based controls to counter illegal activity such as money laundering and terrorism financing.

It also said Block's lax oversight of bitcoin transactions, which it began offering through Cash App in 2018, and the company's subsequent rapid growth created "an environment vulnerable to criminal exploitation."

The regulator cited Block's discovery in a 2022 internal investigation of 8,359 Cash App accounts linked to a Russian criminal network.

Adrienne Harris, New York's superintendent of financial services, said compliance functions "must keep pace with company growth or expansion" at both traditional financial services companies and emerging cryptocurrency platforms.

Cash App had $283 billion of inflows in 2024, and 57 million monthly users at year end, a regulatory filing shows.