HB3833

HB3833 revises the rules for licensed money transmitters and currency-exchange businesses, including background information, acquisitions, financial statements, security and the handling of customer-backed investments. It took effect September 1, 2025. Final law.

Background information: The requirement now directly addresses individuals who control a licensee or applicant, seek to acquire control, or are key individuals of a licensee or applicant, rather than being framed only as information from an individual applicant. Required information includes fingerprints and specified credit, criminal, regulatory and litigation history. The existing fingerprint exception for someone currently living abroad who has lived abroad for the preceding ten years remains; separate foreign-residency background-report requirements remain as well. A “key individual” is someone ultimately responsible for directing policies and procedures, such as an executive, manager, director or trustee. Information requirements.

Acquiring a business: The streamlined acquisition route no longer requires both the buyer and target to already be the same type of licensed money-services business. The target must be projected to meet its specified financial requirements after acquisition; a buyer that itself holds the relevant license must meet those requirements too. Prior approval or identification as a controlling person, license-history and management conditions, no material business-plan changes, notice and attestation requirements still matter. This is not permission for an unvetted buyer to take over without regulatory conditions. Streamlined acquisition.

Currency exchange versus money transmission: Currency-exchange license maintenance no longer cross-references the separate permissible-investment rule for money transmitters. Currency-exchange businesses still must maintain required financial security. Their annual financial statements—audited or unaudited as allowed—must now expressly follow United States generally accepted accounting principles. For initial proof of a money transmitter’s tangible net worth, the act adds the cross-reference allowing qualifying unaudited statements where the commissioner accepts them; it does not abolish audit requirements generally. License requirements, financial statements and net worth.

Security: A currency-exchange licensee’s required security must be a satisfactory surety bond, or a deposit instead with the commissioner’s approval. The act expressly requires prior approval for deposits replacing required security and removes the letter-of-credit wording from the general security-form provision. It does not change the currency-exchange security amount formula in Section 152.353(b)–(e). Security rules.

Investments backing money-transmission obligations: Demand and savings deposits in the specified unrestricted cash category must be held at a federally insured depository financial institution. The separate foreign-deposit category and its percentage, rating and other conditions remain; the act does not ban every foreign account. Nor does holding money at an insured institution guarantee that every dollar or customer claim is insured. Permissible investments.

Stablecoin was already permitted only to the extent of outstanding transmission obligations received in the same kind of stablecoin. HB3833 adds that it must be held directly by the licensee or with a third-party custodian meeting the commissioner’s qualifications. It does not newly authorize unlimited cryptocurrency speculation. The separate standby-letter-of-credit category for permissible investments remains, despite the deletion of letter-of-credit wording in the required-security provision. Those are different statutory rules.

Consistent enforcement terminology: The act replaces “principal” and “responsible person” wording with “key individual” in provisions addressing new applications after license expiration/surrender, license or delegate suspension/revocation, cease-and-desist orders, and certifications that an emergency order was received and understood. It also corrects the background-check cross-reference used when deciding an application is complete. The underlying enforcement grounds and procedures are not erased. Enforcement provisions.