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Texas regulates money transmission — including stablecoin issuance — under Texas Finance Code Chapter 152 (the Money Services Modernization Act of 2023), administered by the Texas Department of Banking. Texas takes a crypto-receptive posture: ordinary cryptocurrency exchange is generally not money transmission, but fiat-backed, redeemable stablecoin activity is licensable MSB activity. DOB has confirmed continued licensing consistent with the GENIUS Act.
Outlook
The dual Chapter 152/160 licensing perimeter remains stable this cycle, with no signalled amendments; the near-term watch item is whether escalating AML enforcement (tracked separately under W11) prompts supervisory tightening of the licensing or net-worth thresholds themselves.
Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access
Texas money-transmission licensing enforcement reached two stablecoin-focused firms this cycle. The Texas Department of Banking resolved a consent order with OKX, Inc. effective 11 September 2026, carrying a 95,000 dollar administrative penalty, over allegations that the firm received sovereign currency and stablecoins for transmission and provided custody services to Texas customers between 2018 and 2024 without the money transmitter licence required under Chapter 152 of the Texas Finance Code. A parallel consent order with Triple A Technologies Pte Ltd., effective 23 September 2026 and carrying a 20,000 dollar penalty, addressed allegations that the firm processed merchant payments in stablecoins and non-convertible cryptocurrency for Texas customers without the same licence. Both matters confirm that the Department continues to treat Chapter 152 as the controlling Texas licensing statute for stablecoin-handling activity, regardless of the firm's underlying business model as an exchange or a payment processor. The penalties themselves are modest relative to the firms involved, but the fact pattern in the OKX matter, alleging unlicensed conduct dating to 2018, suggests the Department's enforcement reach extends well back in time rather than being limited to recently-onboarded activity.
Outlook
Continued Texas DOB enforcement against unlicensed money transmission involving stablecoins should be expected while the state's licensing regime remains the only Texas-specific mechanism reaching this activity. Firms operating stablecoin custody or transmission services for Texas customers without a Chapter 152 licence face a demonstrated, active enforcement risk rather than a theoretical one.
4 earlier distinct update(s)
Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access
The foundational finding for Texas licensing this cycle is a correction to the operative statutory baseline. Finance Code Chapter 151 was repealed outright and replaced by Chapter 152, known as the Money Services Modernization Act, under Senate Bill 895 of the 88th Legislature, effective September 1, 2023. House Bill 3833, signed June 20, 2025 and effective September 1, 2025, made further technical amendments to Chapter 152 at the Department of Banking's own request, indicating an active regulator-driven maintenance relationship with the statute rather than a static framework left unattended since enactment.
The practical significance of this recodification is that industry compliance guidance circulating in the market continues, in some cases, to describe Chapter 151's requirements as current. One tracked source explicitly noted that a guide citing a $500,000 net-worth requirement tied to internet-based operation is quoting a specific, now-repealed provision, section 151.307. The current net-worth and security-bond thresholds for a Texas money transmitter licence sit under Chapter 152's own successor provisions, not the repealed Chapter 151 figures. Firms relying on outdated guidance risk budgeting for, or representing to counterparties and regulators, requirements that no longer reflect the operative statute, which is a market-access planning risk distinct from any substantive change in the underlying regulatory stringency.
This distinction carries directly across the bank-versus-non-bank divide relevant to this module: Chapter 152 licensing applies to non-bank money transmitters and payment institutions operating in Texas, including entities handling virtual currency that meets the statute's definition of money or monetary value. Banks and other depository institutions operate under separate prudential frameworks and are not the primary subject of the Chapter 152 licensing perimeter; the recodification's market-access implications are concentrated among non-bank payment companies and virtual-currency businesses that must hold, or determine whether they require, a Chapter 152 licence.
No change to the substantive licensing standard itself, beyond the recodification and technical amendment, has been identified this cycle. The Department of Banking's continued technical-amendment activity, most recently in 2025, suggests the statute is being actively maintained rather than left static, which is itself a relevant signal for firms assessing the durability and predictability of the Texas licensing regime relative to other state frameworks.
Outlook
Firms and advisers should treat Chapter 152, not Chapter 151, as the current and only operative statutory basis for Texas money-transmission licensing going forward; any residual guidance referencing Chapter 151 should be flagged internally for correction. No further statutory amendment to Chapter 152 has been signalled this cycle, and the Department of Banking's own technical-amendment pattern suggests any future change is likely to be incremental rather than a wholesale restructuring, consistent with the pattern observed in the 2023 and 2025 amendments to date.
Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access
Texas's non-bank payments licensing framework is anchored in Finance Code Chapter 152, the Money Services Modernization Act, which repealed and replaced the former Chapter 151 (Money Services Act) effective September 1, 2023 under S.B. 895, and is administered by the Texas Department of Banking. This recodification is confirmed across a Tier-1 Department of Banking memorandum and corroborating Tier-3 licensing commentary. The statute establishes the licensing perimeter that non-bank payment institutions and e-money-issuing entities must satisfy to operate in Texas, distinguishing this nonbank_pi_emi-lens regulatory track from bank-chartered payment providers, which operate under separate federal and state banking-supervision frameworks not reached by Chapter 152.
A follow-on legislative amendment is currently pending: H.B. 3833, requested in the 89th Legislature's 2025 session, proposes further amendments to Chapter 152 intended to maintain consistency with updates to the underlying interstate money-services model law that Chapter 152 itself was built on. This is sourced to a single Tier-1 primary legislative document, and enactment status was not independently confirmed this cycle; the associated regulatory-horizon estimate places expected impact in a multi-year uncertainty band centered on 2027 Q1.
The Texas Department of Banking's Supervisory Memorandum 1037 further clarifies that fully-reserved, redeemable fiat-pegged stablecoin transmission is licensable money transmission under Chapter 152, extending the licensing perimeter's reach to a specific class of digital-asset activity without creating a separate licensing track for it.
Outlook
The licensing and market-access environment in Texas is mature and stable, with the principal near-term development being confirmation of H.B. 3833's enactment status. No new licence category or market-access barrier was identified this cycle; the standing Chapter 152 framework, as clarified by SM-1037, continues to govern both traditional and stablecoin-related money transmission.
Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access
Texas's money-transmitter licensing regime for non-bank payment institutions and e-money institutions saw material activity this cycle on two fronts. First, the Texas Department of Banking issued an enforcement order finding that INX had violated Finance Code Chapter 152 by consummating a change of control without the required regulatory approval. This is a confirmed-confidence finding drawn from a Tier-1 primary source, and it falls squarely within the bank-PSP versus non-bank-PI/EMI distinction that structures this module: INX is regulated under the state's money-transmitter licensing track for non-depository entities, not under bank charter supervision, and the enforcement action concerns the licensing-control obligations specific to that track — namely, that a change of control at a licensed money transmitter requires prior regulatory approval, and that consummating such a change without it is itself a violation independent of any downstream conduct issue.
Second, and read as the standing-architecture counterpart to that enforcement action, the Department publicly confirmed it will continue to license and regulate issuers of fiat-currency-backed stablecoin as money transmitters, and that it intends to do so in a manner consistent with the federal GENIUS Act. This is not a new licensing category but a reaffirmation of an existing posture, delivered with particular salience given the approaching federal rulemaking deadline. It confirms that stablecoin issuance in Texas continues to be routed through the non-bank money-transmitter licensing perimeter rather than through any separate or bank-only channel.
Underpinning both developments is Supervisory Memorandum 1037, the Department's standing interpretive guidance on which virtual-currency business models trigger money-transmission licensing obligations. The Memorandum draws a specific line: centralized virtual-currency exchange activity involving a third-party escrow-like intermediary, and the exchange of sovereign currency for virtual currency, falls inside the licensing perimeter; a stablecoin carrying a redemption right allowing the holder to redeem the coin similarly implicates money-transmission licensing. This interpretive guidance was not amended this cycle but remains the operative framework against which both the INX action and the state's stablecoin posture should be read — it is the mechanism that determines, in the first instance, which digital-asset business models Texas treats as subject to non-bank money-transmitter licensing and authorisation at all.
Taken together, this cycle's W1a picture for Texas is one of a licensing regime that is both substantively stable in its interpretive foundations and actively enforced at the margin — the Department is willing to take enforcement action against a licensed non-bank digital-asset money transmitter for a governance/control-approval failure, while simultaneously signalling continuity of the underlying licensing category into the federal GENIUS Act era.
Outlook
The operative date to track is July 18, 2026, the federal deadline by which permitted payment stablecoin issuers must have AML/sanctions-compliance programs in place; Texas's confirmed alignment posture suggests state licensing practice will track that federal timeline rather than require separate reconciliation. The INX matter warrants continued tracking given this cycle's finding rests on a single Tier-1 source describing the order itself, and its ultimate disposition — including any further licensing consequence — remains open. No changes to Supervisory Memorandum 1037's interpretive lines were identified this cycle.
Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access
The Texas Department of Banking has confirmed that it continues to supervise fiat-backed stablecoin issuers through money-services-business licensing under Chapter 152 of the Finance Code, a posture it describes as consistent with the federal GENIUS Act now rolling out. This is a direct, Tier-1 regulatory statement rather than a market inference, and it establishes continuity in Texas's licensing architecture at a moment when many states' stablecoin regimes are being tested against the new federal framework.
Texas's entry-capital threshold for this licence, roughly USD 100,000 to USD 300,000 in net worth plus a surety bond, is materially lower than the USD 5 million capital floor associated with a Wyoming special-purpose depository institution charter, one of the more capital-intensive state alternatives available to stablecoin issuers. That comparative gap positions Texas as a lower-barrier state pathway under the GENIUS Act's sub-USD-10-billion state-supervision track, a structural fact that bears directly on where issuers domicile for state-level licensing purposes.
Layered on top of the state licensing framework is a federal-plus-state rulemaking mandate: implementing rules under the GENIUS Act are due no later than 18 July 2026, a deadline that binds both state regulators, including the Texas Department of Banking, and federal rulemakers simultaneously.
Outlook
Watch the 18 July 2026 GENIUS Act implementing-rules deadline and the Texas Department of Banking's continued public guidance on Chapter 152 as the near-term indicators of whether Texas's licensing architecture remains the operative supervisory framework for stablecoin issuers domiciled in the state.
Sources and findings (5)
- T1https://www.dob.texas.gov/applications-forms-publications/notice-applicantsretrieved
- T1https://www.dob.texas.gov/applications-forms-publications/general-application-requirementsretrieved
- T3https://legalclarity.org/texas-money-transmitter-license-who-needs-it-and-how-to-apply/retrieved
- T1https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/finance-code/title-3/subtitle-e/chapter-160/section-160-001/retrieved
- T1https://www.ssb.texas.gov/cryptocurrency-enforcementretrieved