The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has preempted Colorado's law governing automated teller machines.
The provision in the 1977 state law that spurred the comptroller's move bars national banks from displaying their names or logos on stand-alone ATMs.
"This prohibition of a very basic type of advertising is, in our opinion, a significant burden on a national bank's right to engage in the business of banking by means of an ATM," OCC Chief Counsel Julie L. Williams wrote in a June 27 letter to Colorado Banking Commissioner Richard Fulkerson.
In January, Mr. Fulkerson told Wells Fargo & Co. to remove its name and logo from ATMs in Colorado. The state law only became a problem after Congress in September 1996 changed federal law to exclude ATMs from the definition of a branch.
The Colorado law does not cover ATMs located at a branch. But when national bank ATMs were no longer considered branches, the Colorado law kicked in.
Mr. Fulkerson said he was not surprised by the comptroller's preemption, noting the state law is "somewhat outdated as the world has changed."
Mr. Fulkerson said Colorado's banking board would decide next month whether to challenge the Comptroller's Office or ask the state legislature to change the law.
Without a change, he noted, the state's 122 banks could not advertise on ATMs while the 91 national banks operating in Colorado could.
