Ladies and Gentlemen:
The Bank Policy Institute[1] and the American Bankers Association[2] appreciate the opportunity to provide comments on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Relating to FDIC Official Signs, Advertisement of Membership, False Advertising, Misrepresentation of Insured Status, and Misuse of the FDIC’s Name or Logo.[3] The proposal is intended to amend signage requirements for insured depository institutions’ digital deposit-taking channels and automated teller machines and like devices to address implementation issues and sources of potential confusion that have arisen following the adoption of current signage requirements for these banking channels. We very much appreciate the FDIC’s engagement with industry regarding the existing rule and the FDIC’s willingness to consider changes to the rule intended to provide additional flexibility to IDIs while also enabling consumers to better understand when they are conducting business with an IDI and when their funds are protected by the FDIC’s deposit insurance coverage.
While the proposal is a positive step forward, additional changes to the 2023 rule would help ensure clarity and avoid confusion for depositors and other bank customers. Banks offer an array of products and services through their digital channels, including those related to commercial banking, investments, and insurance. Since each bank’s digital channels reflect that individual bank’s product offerings, marketing strategies, and technological design and preferences, there is an almost infinite number of website and mobile application designs that banks may adopt. For this reason, and as explained in greater detail below, we respectfully request that the FDIC provide banks with additional flexibility to place the FDIC official digital sign and other disclosures on digital channels in a way that provides clarity in the context of the specific bank’s product offerings and digital display and functionality.
Consistent with allowing banks greater flexibility to display the FDIC official signage, we respectfully request that the FDIC remove several requirements that, if mandated for all IDIs, could create consumer confusion for some banks. While several changes are recommended herein, our primary requests are that the FDIC eliminate the requirements that:
- The FDIC official digital sign appear on login and home pages,
- The non-deposit signage appear as a one-time notification for bank customers related to third-party non-deposit products (or, at a minimum, that the FDIC exclude affiliates from this requirement); and
- Static non-deposit signage be displayed on digital deposit-taking channels.
Furthermore, as discussed in greater detail herein, we recommend additional amendments to sections of the 2023 rule that the FDIC has not addressed in the proposed rule. As part of these revisions, we note that the FDIC has issued FAQs in connection with the existing rule. We respectfully request that, consistent with our recommendation that the FDIC adopt a framework providing banks’ maximum flexibility regarding digital and ATM signage placement, the FAQs may be inconsistent with such an approach in a revised rule. Therefore, the FDIC should rescind the FAQs.
Finally, we reiterate that with respect to any final rule the FDIC adopts, implementing digital signage and advertising changes would require banks to allocate significant time and IT resources to redevelop, test and deploy their various digital platforms. The process constraints would be exacerbated by the fact that many banks rely on a handful of third-party vendors, such as core providers, to design and host their digital platforms. Furthermore, year-end tech freezes further shorten the actual time banks would have to implement any final proposal. Accordingly, IDIs would need at least 18 months to comply with the final rule.[4]
To read the full comment letter, please click here, or click on the download button below.
[1] The Bank Policy Institute is a nonpartisan public policy, research and advocacy group that represents universal banks, regional banks and the major foreign banks doing business in the United States. The Institute produces academic research and analysis on regulatory and monetary policy topics, analyzes and comments on proposed regulations and represents the financial services industry with respect to cybersecurity, fraud and other information security issues.
[2] The American Bankers Association is the voice of the nation’s $23.6 trillion banking industry, which is composed of small, regional and large banks that together employ more than 2 million people, safeguard $19.2 trillion in deposits and extend $12.2 trillion in loans.
[3] 90 Fed. Reg. 40767 (Aug. 21, 2025).
[4] BPI and ABA submitted a letter to the FDIC on September 22, 2025, requesting the FDIC to suspend the compliance deadline for the existing rule while the FDIC considers the proposed revisions to the rule (link). As of the date of this letter, the FDIC had not taken such action. We reiterate the importance of the suspension of the compliance deadline to avoid unnecessarily expending resources to comply with a rule that may be amended. A decision to maintain the deadlines would force banks to expend resources to attempt to assess and make changes to comply with the 2023 Final Rule prior to the Proposal being finalized, work that may ultimately need to be redone if beneficial changes to the proposal become final.
