Before the conversion enabled by this approval, the bank was a state-chartered financial institution, according to the report, which cited an interview with United Texas Bank President and CEO Scott Beck.
United Texas Bank will also continue to provide the digital asset services it has been delivering for years while “Wall Street continues to tiptoe,” Beck said in the report.
The OCC’s approval also marks the 40-year-old Texas bank’s debut on the national stage, per the report.
Digital asset players that can’t get accounts at other banks can go to United Texas Bank and “basically have full access to the U.S. dollar,” Beck said.
The bank has been serving crypto firms for about five years and has handled $120 billion in transactions for them each year, according to the report.
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As a nationally chartered bank, United Texas Bank now has federal licensure, full trust powers and direct access to the Federal Reserve’s wire and ACH systems, along with the FDIC insurance it already had, the report said.
Beck also said in the report that United Texas Bank is launching a real-time payment network called UTB Atomic that offers the round-the-clock liquidity infrastructure needed by the crypto market that operates 24/7.
UTB Atomic’s instant, off-balance-sheet clearing between institutional clients is supported by the bank’s artificial intelligence network called UTB Prism Sentinel, which neutralizes compliance risks by conducting continuous, real-time blockchain surveillance, per the report.
United Texas Bank plans to add a digital asset custody and full-service trust department this summer, Beck said in the report.
The Federal Reserve Board said in a May 15 press release that it did not object to United Texas Bank’s conversion from a bank supervised by the Federal Reserve to one supervised by the OCC.
When a bank is supervised by the Federal Reserve and is subject to enforcement actions issued by the board, it is required to have the board not object when it proposes converting to a national bank, according to the release. The OCC submitted a supervisory plan to the board that will address an enforcement action regarding United Texas Bank, per the release.
According to the CoinDesk report, the bank operated under a consent order with the Federal Reserve related to its Bank Secrecy Act and compliance infrastructure.
