Insights

FDIC Finalizes New Official Digital Signage and Advertising Rule, With Some Changes

The final rule reflects a more modern approach, giving banks greater latitude in how they advertise FDIC deposit insurance

By Michael Treves, Max Bonici, and Stephen T. Gannon

02.04.26

The FDIC published its final rule updating and easing the requirements for FDIC official digital signage and advertising FDIC deposit insurance status under 12 CFR Part 328. The final rule eliminates prescriptive formatting requirements for the FDIC official digital sign and focuses display requirements on the screens and pages that are most relevant to customers. The final rule should ease compliance burdens for banks by allowing more design flexibility as well as reducing the number of places where they must display FDIC official signage. The final rule largely adopts the rule proposed in August with some key changes. This post focuses on what has changed.

The final rule becomes effective March 2, 2026, but banks need not comply until April 1, 2027.

Key Takeaways

Less prescriptive and exhaustive requirements. The final rule eliminates many of the detailed requirements of the 2023 final rule. This change should lead to less technical violations and a more reasonable and commonsense approach to evaluating compliance with 12 CFR Part 328. While specific language and precise requirements can effectively serve as a safe harbor, they presuppose an enforcement posture that seeks out technical violations. The FDIC now appears more focused on preventing material financial risks.
Greater flexibility. The final rule gives banks and their partners the room to reach customers through new ways, which may not be known today and will only become apparent as technology changes.
Eases non-deposit signage too. The final rule narrows the requirement to display non-deposit signage to only website and app pages primarily dedicated to advertising or providing information about, or access to, non-deposit products, and the initial transaction page or screen of ATMs or like devices.
Accuracy still required. We note that FDIC deposit insurance advertising still must not be misleading under FDIC regulations and federal statutes.
Regulatory reform. While technical in nature, these changes are consistent with the Trump Administration's overall effort to lessen the regulatory burden on banks, including, as Treasury Secretary Bessent told the American Bankers Association in May 2025, "devot[ing] the necessary time and attention to the quite technical, substantive aspects of regulatory reform."

Design Requirements for the FDIC Official Digital Sign

Changes to the design of the FDIC official digital sign were largely adopted as proposed. The text of the official sign must be navy blue or black—or white, if the color of the background would cause the sign to be illegible—using Source Sans Pro Web or a similar font, but the FDIC will no longer require specific hexadecimal color codes or font sizes. Banks may also wrap the text to address space constraints.

Digital Deposit-Taking Channels

Based on public comments on the proposal, the FDIC further revised the scope of some of the signage requirements on digital deposit-taking channels.

In addition to the initial page or homepage of the website or app and login pages, the final rule clarifies that a bank only must display the FDIC official digital sign on the first page or screen where the customer initiates a deposit account opening. This is notably different from prior practice, where a bank had to display the FDIC official digital sign on the initial page or homepage, login and so-called "landing" pages, and pages where a customer may transact with deposits. The new standard is objectively clearer to implement.
Recognizing that a bank's digital deposit-taking channels may also advertise or provide information about non-deposit products and include a link to a third party's website or mobile app, the final rule builds on the proposal to require that a bank display non-deposit signage on digital deposit-taking channels that offer the ability to make deposits electronically, provide access to deposits, and advertise or provide information about, access to, one or more non-deposit products.
The final rule also narrows the types of digital deposit-taking channel pages where banks must display non-deposit signage. While the proposal would have required non-deposit signage on pages "primarily dedicated" to non-deposit products, the final rule requires banks to display the non-deposit signage only on pages "primarily dedicated to advertising or providing information about, or access to," one or more non-deposit products.
The proposal provided a non-exhaustive list of examples of "clear, continuous, and conspicuous" signage. The final rule adopted the first three examples as proposed and revised the fourth example to state that non-deposit signage placed towards the bottom of a page that distinguishes the text from the smallest text on the page by using bold or larger font, or surrounding the disclosure with a text box, would generally be considered to be clear and conspicuous.
The proposal would have allowed banks to meet the current one-time notification requirement by displaying a pop-up message, visible for at least three seconds or dismissible by the customer, whenever the customer accesses non-deposit services from a non-bank third-party platform through the bank's digital deposit channel. The final rule clarifies that the notification requirement applies when a customer leaves the bank's digital deposit-taking channel and navigates to either an affiliated or unaffiliated platform that offers non-deposit products and the notification can be dismissed either, or both, (1) by an act of the customer or (2) automatically after a minimum of three seconds.

ATMs and Like Devices

The FDIC's final rule also advances the proposed changes to the ATM signage requirements. These changes largely reflect a change in technology where ATMs need no longer be single-use (e.g., branch substitutes) but multi-function, even multi-provider platforms—essentially big screens, like other tech, not limited by more antiquated paradigms.

While the final rule generally adopts the proposed change to require banks to display the FDIC official digital sign on the initial screen of ATMs and like devices, the final rule clarifies that a screensaver or an advertisement for products, services, or events on the screen of an idle ATM is not considered the "initial screen," and therefore, the official digital sign need not be displayed. That allows a range of flexibility for multi-purpose devices and interfaces.
The final rule adopts the limited exception for certain ATMs and like devices to display the physical official sign as proposed, but changes the "placed into service" date for the physical sign exception from January 1, 2027, to April 1, 2027, to align with the compliance date of the final rule.
The final rule adopts the proposed changes to require the display of non-deposit signage on the first page or screen that a customer views upon initiating a transaction with a non-deposit product. The final rule also provides that this requirement applies only to ATMs or like devices that permit customers to transact with one or more non-deposit products and only with respect to the bank's own customers.

Additional Disclosures

The final rule adds new subsections to the digital deposit-taking channel signage and ATM signage requirements to expressly provide that banks may display additional disclosures along with those required by 12 CFR Part 328. Depending on the other non-deposit products, those disclosures may include lending, securities, investment products, and insurance products, among others.

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