Warren Urges OCC to Revoke United Texas Bank Charter

United Texas Bank, a Dallas lender with about $1 billion in assets, serves foreign financial institutions and digital-asset firms. The Federal Reserve and Texas Department of Banking issued a cease-and-desist order on Aug. 29, 2024, citing deficiencies in its Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering controls. Section 612 of the Dodd-Frank Act generally restricts charter conversions by banks facing serious enforcement actions to deter regulatory arbitrage, making the case a test of how narrowly statutory exceptions should be applied.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency conditionally approved United Texas Bank’s conversion on May 15, 2026, assigning charter number 25377, and the change became effective on June 12. The OCC required the bank to enter a substantially similar consent order within three business days of conversion. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren asked Comptroller Jonathan Gould to revoke the charter, arguing that approving a bank still under an anti-money-laundering enforcement action undermined Section 612 and could establish a dangerous precedent for regulator shopping.