The Fed Has Lifted a Cease-and-Desist Order It Wrote Over a Dallas Bank's Virtual-Currency Customers

The Federal Reserve Board said on September 4 that it has ended three enforcement actions. Two of them, against Quontic Bank Acquisition Corp. and Quontic Bank Holdings Corp., both of Astoria, New York, closed out a written agreement dated July 5, 2023. The third ended a cease-and-desist order against United Texas Bank of Dallas dated August 29, 2024. All three terminations took effect on September 2, 2026.

What the 2024 order said

The United Texas Bank order is the more detailed of the two documents. Examiners found what the order described as significant deficiencies in the bank's corporate governance and oversight, together with compliance gaps under the Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering rules. The order named two customer categories specifically: foreign correspondent banking and virtual currency customers.

What the bank had to do

The order required written plans, due within 60 to 90 days, across six areas.

1. Board oversight: tighten the board's control of BSA/AML and OFAC compliance, ensure violations were escalated, and improve the quality of reporting to directors.
2. Corporate governance: restructure the board, build management succession plans, and improve how issues were identified.
3. BSA/AML compliance: put in internal controls, run a comprehensive risk assessment, establish independent testing, and hire a qualified compliance officer with full autonomy.
4. Customer due diligence: collect complete customer information, verify identity and source of wealth, assign risk ratings, and conduct periodic account reviews.
5. Suspicious activity monitoring: document the monitoring methodology, improve detection, and keep investigation records.
6. OFAC compliance: strengthen sanctions screening and train staff on an ongoing basis.

The bank was also required to file quarterly progress reports with its supervisors.

Why a termination is not nothing

A cease-and-desist order is a public constraint on how a bank operates. While it is outstanding, the institution is negotiating its plans with supervisors and reporting quarterly on progress. Terminating the order removes that formal obligation. It is the supervisory system's way of recording that the conditions that produced the order have, in the supervisor's judgement, been addressed.

The Federal Reserve publishes enforcement actions and their terminations on a rolling basis; both the 2024 order and the 2023 written agreement remain available in the Board's enforcement archive.