The Federal Reserve Board has terminated its enforcement action against Farmington State Bank and its holding company FBH Corp., because Farmington State Bank is no more, the regulator said Tuesday.
The board's August 2023 enforcement action was meant to ensure that Farmington would “wind down in a manner that protected the bank's depositors.”
“Farmington has completed its wind down plan and no longer functions as a bank,” the central bank’s board said.
Farmington, a 135-year-old bank headquartered in a town with roughly 150 residents, was the nation’s 26th-smallest lender when it garnered a $11.5 million investment from Alameda Research, sister company to then-high-flying crypto exchange FTX, in March 2022.
Farmington had been acquired two years prior by FBH, a company owned by French banker (and “Inspector Gadget” co-creator) Jean Chalopin; and upon Alameda’s investment the bank changed its name to Moonstone Bank and its mission to the “pursuit of an innovation-driven business model.”
But in January 2023, two months after the implosion of FTX that has since led to seven fraud and conspiracy convictions for founder Sam Bankman-Fried and guilty pleas by four other higher-ups, Farmington retreated from its Moonstone identity along with its crypto (and cannabis) pursuits.
Federal prosecutors seized $50 million from Farmington early last year as part of their investigation of Bankman-Fried. In the spring, Farmington sold off its assets to Bank of Eastern Oregon, a nearby lender with 26 branches in Oregon and Washington.
Parent company FBH failed to file its annual report with Washington state, resulting in its “administration dissolution of termination” by Dec. 31, Protos reported in November.
A spokesperson for the Federal Reserve Board told Banking Dive that they had “nothing to share” beyond Tuesday’s press release.
