Financial crimes

The plea agreement, which includes a fine of more than $1.4 billion, penalizes TD for systemic money laundering violations. "We have the ability to profit, and we should be able to profit, but not at the expense of the law," said U.S. District Judge Esther Salas.

An uptick in fines associated with anti-money-laundering failures demonstrates that U.S. banks still have much work to do in terms of optimizing their internal systems to identify and stop the flow of dirty money.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a letter that the Department of Justice intentionally avoided threatening TD Bank's charter to operate. The Massachusetts Democrat also pressed the agency to prosecute bank executives.

The megabank disclosed that regulators are looking at its anti-money-laundering and sanctions compliance. Wells Fargo was recently hit with an enforcement action over similar matters.

The supposed glitch was simply check fraud. The bank is suing four people who allegedly took as much as $290,000 from the bank as part of the scheme.

TD Bank's guilty plea to extensive money-laundering charges last week did not include any criminal charges against individual bank executives. That absence has critics fuming, but experts say bringing charges against individuals isn't so easy.

For more than a decade, the bank allowed billions of dollars from illicit activities to flow through the U.S. financial system unchecked. Some are wondering why examiners didn't put a stop to it sooner.

Regulators' asset cap on TD Bank for money-laundering violations has cemented the enforcement tool as a supreme cudgel to rein in problem banks, while other tools devised in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis gather dust.

The Canadian bank is indefinitely prohibited from growing assets at its two U.S. subsidiaries as the result of a sweeping settlement over money-laundering violations. While only the second imposition of such a penalty ever, experts say it will not be the last.

The sweeping enforcement actions will be a watershed event for TD Bank's U.S. subsidiary, which had previously been a promising growth engine.