Bank Website Design: Web Design for Banks That Passes Compliance Review and Opens Accounts

Updated October 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team

Web design for banks is the planning, design and build of a bank’s public website: the product and rate pages, the branch and ATM locator, the handoffs to online banking and account opening, the disclosure library, and every template where a regulator’s rule decides what must appear and where. It is written for the marketing, digital and compliance leads of community and regional banks and credit unions, and for the executives who approve the contract. The result is a site customers can use on any device, that examiners and vendor-risk teams can review, and that turns visits into opened and funded accounts. Progression Agency is based in New York City and works with clients across the United States and worldwide.

What does web design for banks include?

It includes everything a customer sees before they log in or open an account, and the joins to the systems they reach after that. Getting the second part right is what separates bank work from an ordinary business site.

The public site

Home, personal and business product pages, rates, loans and mortgages, calculators, the branch and ATM locator, security and fraud guidance, the disclosure library, about and community pages, careers and, for a public holding company, investor relations. Each of these is a template the bank’s team will edit for years, so the build is as much a content system as a design.

The systems behind it

Online banking and the mobile app usually come from a digital banking vendor, account opening and loan applications often from other vendors, and balances and transactions from the core processor. The website links to these, styles the pages it can, and passes customers between them without confusion or risk.

Who signs off on a bank website?

Marketing owns the design and copy, compliance reviews every rate, disclosure and claim, information security reviews scripts, domains and vendors, and the third-party risk function reviews the agency itself. Plan the timeline around those reviews, because they are where bank projects wait.

Bank web design versus a general business site

A general business site can change a headline on a whim. A bank cannot: a rate, a bonus or the word free on a page is an advertisement with required disclosures, the homepage carries a federal sign, and the login link is a security boundary. Bank web design builds those constraints into the templates so editors cannot break them by accident.

Banking web design: the page types a full build covers

A full build covers fifteen or so page types, each with a job and a rule or system attached. The table is the checklist we would expect any proposal to address.

Templates, not pages

Most of those rows are templates used dozens of times. Designing the rate component, the disclosure block and the legal footer once, with fields compliance has approved, is what keeps a two-hundred-page site consistent after launch.

Which pages get cut that should not be?

The disclosure library, the accessibility statement and the security center are often left until the end and built in a hurry. Examiners, auditors and worried customers read those pages closely, so they belong in the first design round.

Community bank website design

Community bank website design has to do the work of a large bank’s site with a fraction of the team. That means fewer, better templates, a content model that two or three people can keep current, and a site that shows what a local bank does better: people, places and decisions made nearby.

What a smaller bank needs most

Fast access to login, clear product pages with fees and rates in text, a locator with accurate hours, local lenders and bankers with names and photos, and a simple path to open an account or start a loan. Most of the rest is optional.

Best community bank websites: what they tend to get right

The strongest community bank websites lead with the bank’s own people and towns rather than stock photography, keep the login and help in the same place on every page, publish fee schedules as readable pages, and explain small-business banking in the language local owners use. None of that depends on budget.

Keeping community bank websites current with a small team

Rates that update from one source, branch hours that update from one feed, and an editor role that cannot touch the legal footer or the disclosure blocks let a small team change copy without a developer and without breaking a rule.

Search for a community bank, including branch pages and local rankings, is covered on our SEO for banks page, and campaigns for deposits and loans on our bank marketing agency page. This page stays with the build.

Designing the rates page and APY component under Regulation DD

Treat the rate as a component, not as text. Regulation DD decides how a yield is stated and what must travel with it, and a component that enforces those rules stops an editor from publishing a non-compliant rate.

The yield is the headline number

Under 12 CFR 1030.8, any ad that gives a rate of return has to give it as an annual percentage yield, and the full term must appear once before the APY abbreviation is used. The only other rate permitted is the interest rate, and only next to its yield and never more prominent. So the component’s largest figure is always the APY, and an interest rate field, if used, is styled smaller.

Fields that must travel with the yield

Once a yield appears, the rule lists what follows, as applicable: for variable rates, that the rate may change; the period the yield is offered or an as-of date; the minimum balance to earn it; the minimum opening deposit if higher; a statement that fees could reduce earnings; and, for time accounts, the term and that an early withdrawal penalty will or may apply. Build each as a required field, so the component cannot render without it.

Tiered rates in a table

For tiered-rate accounts the rule asks for each tier’s minimum balance in close proximity and with equal prominence to that tier’s yield. A real HTML table, one row per tier, does this and is readable by screen readers; a graphic of a rate table is neither.

Linking a teaser to the full terms

The official interpretation covers online ads too: when a web ad shows a triggering term such as an APY or a bonus, it has to point to the place where the rest of the terms begin, and a link that lands on those terms does the job. The broadcast and electronic media exemption stops at the internet, so it does not cover ads posted online or sent by email. A homepage rate tile therefore needs its terms or a direct link to them.

The word free

The same section bars calling an account free or no cost if any maintenance or activity fee may be imposed, and bars the word profit for interest. Product templates should hold an approved product name and an approved claims list, so the word cannot creep into a banner.

Two years of evidence

Under 12 CFR 1030.9(c), a depository institution keeps evidence of compliance for at least two years. A CMS that stores every published version of a rate page, with dates and approvers, produces that evidence without a screenshot routine.

How rates show up in search titles and snippets, and how to handle that with compliance, is covered on our SEO for banks page; how a rate sentence reads when an AI assistant repeats it is covered on AEO for banks.

Loan pages and Regulation Z: tables, calculators and payment examples

Loan pages trigger more disclosure the moment they state certain terms, and Regulation Z gives websites a practical way to handle that: one clear table of terms that every mention points to.

Triggering terms in templates

Under 12 CFR 1026.24, a closed-end credit advertisement that states a down payment, a number of payments or repayment period, a payment amount or a finance charge must also state the down payment, the repayment terms and the annual percentage rate, with any possible increase after consummation. Templates for auto, personal and mortgage pages should either avoid those terms in headlines or carry the full set.

One table, many mentions

The rule treats an electronic advertisement as a single advertisement when a clearly set-out table or schedule carries the required terms and every other mention of a triggering term clearly refers to where that table begins. On a website that means a terms table on each loan page, with in-page links from every payment example to it.

Calculators

A payment calculator’s default figures and result wording read like a payment example, so compliance should approve the defaults, the labels and the explanatory text. Build the calculator to show its assumptions in text next to the result, not in a tooltip.

Equal Housing Lender in mortgage templates

For FDIC-supervised banks, 12 CFR 338.3 requires advertising for home purchase, construction, improvement or dwelling-secured loans to show that the bank lends without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, handicap or familial status, which a written or visual ad can satisfy with the Equal Housing Lender logotype and legend. It also bars words, symbols or models that suggest a discriminatory preference. Mortgage and home equity templates should carry the logo and legend by default; banks supervised by other agencies should confirm their own regulator’s rule.

FDIC Part 328 in the templates: the digital sign as a design component

The FDIC’s amended Part 328 puts its official digital sign on three specific pages of a bank’s digital deposit-taking channels. Build the sign once, as a component with fixed rules, and place it where the regulation and the FDIC’s answers say.

Three pages, not every page

Under 12 CFR 328.5, a digital deposit-taking channel must display the sign clearly, continuously and conspicuously on the initial page or homepage, the login page, and the page or screen where a consumer first initiates a deposit account opening. The FDIC’s questions and answers add that a purely informational website, with no ability to make or access deposits, is not a digital deposit-taking channel.

Placement: near the bank’s name, or in a footer that stays visible

The rule’s own examples put the sign at the top of the homepage next to the bank’s name, and right beside the username and password fields on an app’s login screen. The FDIC’s answers allow other spots, including the footer, as long as the sign stays clear, continuous and conspicuous; it cannot be dismissed, but it need not follow the visitor down the page or link to the FDIC.

Color, type and wrapping

The sign’s text is navy blue or black, set in Source Sans Pro Web or a similar font, or white where the background would make the colors illegible, and the text may wrap to fit narrow screens. The final rule published on January 29, 2026 dropped the fixed color codes and sizes, took effect on March 2, 2026, and set a compliance date of April 1, 2027. The FDIC offers a standard version, optional to use, through FDICconnect.

Non-deposit pages and the exit notice

Pages primarily about investments, insurance or other non-deposit products must show signage that they are not FDIC insured, not deposits and may lose value. When a logged-in customer is about to leave for a third party’s non-deposit product, the channel must show a one-time notice per session for each third-party site, which the customer dismisses or which disappears automatically after at least three seconds. A second link to a different third party in the same session triggers the notice again. That notice usually lives in the online banking platform, so it belongs in the vendor requirements.

Build it without breaking the layout or accessibility

Render the sign in the page’s own HTML with reserved space, give it real text rather than an image of text, and test it at 320 CSS pixels wide. The FDIC’s answers state that Part 328 does not alter a bank’s obligations under the ADA.

Which page types carry the advertising statement Member FDIC, and how the rule plays out across search, are covered on our SEO for banks page and in the advertising section of our bank marketing agency page.

Credit union website design: the NCUA statement

Credit unions follow NCUA rules rather than Part 328, and one of them is specific to the website. The design differences are small but easy to miss.

The official advertising statement on the main internet page

Under 12 CFR 740.5, a federally insured credit union includes the official advertising statement in its advertisements, including on its main internet page. The short forms are ‘Federally insured by NCUA’ or ‘Insured by NCUA’, and the statement may be no smaller than the smallest font used elsewhere in the advertisement to convey information to the reader.

Everything else carries over

NCUA’s own Truth in Savings rule, 12 CFR Part 707, applies the same annual percentage yield advertising rules to credit unions, and accessibility, security and vendor review work the same way. Our credit union marketing agency page covers campaigns and membership growth.

The online banking login handoff

The login entry point is one of the most used links on a bank site and its sharpest security boundary. Design it so customers find it instantly and so the marketing site never handles a credential.

Link to the platform rather than embedding the form

Some bank sites put a username and password box on the homepage that posts to the banking platform. A clearly labeled login button that opens the platform’s own sign-in page keeps credentials off the content management system, keeps the bank’s marketing scripts away from the sign-in fields and lets the platform run its own authentication controls. Discuss the choice with the platform vendor and information security; some platforms support only one pattern.

Make the destination recognizable

Customers trained to check the address bar should see the bank’s own name on the login page, ideally on a subdomain the bank controls, with the bank’s branding and the FDIC digital sign beside the username and password fields. A login link that lands on an unfamiliar vendor domain teaches customers to trust addresses they should not.

Authentication belongs to the platform, education to the website

The FFIEC’s 2021 statement on authentication, conveyed in OCC Bulletin 2021-36, replaced the 2005 and 2011 internet banking guidance. It highlights the weakness of single-factor authentication, the role of multifactor authentication or controls of equal strength, and a customer awareness program. The website’s part is that awareness program: a security center that explains how the bank will and will not contact customers, current scam warnings and how to report fraud.

Accessible authentication

WCAG 2.2 added success criterion 3.3.8, which says a cognitive function test, such as remembering a password or solving a puzzle, is not required in any authentication step unless an alternative, a helping mechanism or certain recognition tasks are available. In practice: allow password managers and paste, and avoid puzzle challenges without an alternative. Raise it with the platform vendor, since the sign-in page is theirs.

Online banking website design: what the bank controls

Online banking website design is mostly configuration inside the digital banking vendor’s product. The bank controls branding, messages and some layout; the vendor controls the application. The website’s job is to make the move between the two feel like one bank.

Theme and messages inside the platform

Colors, logo, type and in-app messages are usually configurable. Matching them to the public site’s design system, and writing in-app promotions to the same Regulation DD and Regulation Z rules as the website, keeps one voice across both.

The app store handoff

In Safari on iPhone and iPad, a smart app banner offers the bank’s app from the website. Apple’s smart app banner documentation describes a single meta tag carrying the app’s ID and an optional link back into the app. Use it on pages where an app user is likely to land, not on account-opening pages where it distracts.

Help that follows the customer

Customers move between website, banking platform and app mid-task. The same phone number, help center and branch locator should be reachable from all three, in the same place, which WCAG 2.2’s consistent help criterion also asks for.

Branch and ATM locator design

Customers use the locator to find a branch, an ATM or today’s hours. It should work without the map, load fast on a phone and never show the wrong hours.

A text list before a map

A map widget alone excludes keyboard and screen reader users and is slow on a weak signal. Lead with a searchable list of locations, each with address, hours, services, phone and accessibility notes, and offer the map as an extra.

One source for hours and holidays

Hours, holiday closures and temporary changes should come from one data source that also feeds the bank’s business listings, so the website, the map listings and the phone tree agree on a holiday morning.

Structured data for branches

Schema.org defines BankOrCreditUnion under LocalBusiness and FinancialService. Marking up each branch page with it, along with its address, hours and phone, gives search engines the same facts customers see. Local rankings themselves are covered on our SEO for banks page.

Account opening and loan application handoffs

Account opening and loan applications usually run on vendor platforms. The website’s work is to set expectations before the handoff, keep the experience consistent and measure what happens across the domains.

Set expectations before the first field

Tell applicants on the product page what they will need, such as identification and a funding account, how long it takes and whether they can save and return. The customer identification requirements behind those requests are explained on our bank marketing agency page.

Electronic disclosures and consent

Regulation DD lets account disclosures be delivered electronically subject to the E-SIGN Act’s consumer consent provisions. The consent step usually sits in the opening vendor’s flow, but its wording and design should match the bank’s site and be readable on a phone.

Do not ask twice

WCAG 2.2’s redundant entry criterion asks that information a user has already entered in the same process be filled in automatically or offered for selection rather than typed again. Applications that ask for an address twice fail it and add friction at the worst moment.

Measuring across domains

When opening runs on a vendor domain, analytics counts a new visit at the handoff unless cross-domain measurement is set up. Google’s cross-domain measurement guide explains how to attribute both domains to one user. Keep advertising pixels off application pages and agree with information security what may be measured there.

Core processor and vendor integration

The public site should touch the core as little as possible. Most integrations are links, embedded vendor pages or data feeds, and each one is a decision about security, speed and who maintains it.

What the website should and should not touch

The marketing site needs rates, product data, branch data and links into banking, opening and applications. It should not hold customer data, balances or credentials, and it should not run scripts on authenticated pages. Drawing that line in the first workshop shortens every later security review.

Rate and product data from one place

Rates belong in one source, whether a feed from the core or the rate desk, or a protected table in the CMS that compliance approves. Every page, tile and calculator reads from it, so a rate change happens once and shows its as-of date everywhere.

Vendor pages in the bank’s design system

Opening flows, loan applications and investor relations pages are often hosted by vendors that allow some styling. Hand them the design system as tokens for color, type and spacing so the seams between bank and vendor are hard to see.

Platform choice

We build on WordPress or headless, with Next.js where performance or content structure call for it, and never on anything the client cannot take with them. Hosting is set up in the client’s name. Our headless WordPress and web portal development pages cover the heavier builds.

Accessibility for bank websites: the ADA, DOJ guidance and WCAG 2.2

Banks are named among the businesses open to the public in the Justice Department’s web guidance, and WCAG 2.2 AA is the practical target. Build to it from the first template rather than fixing it at the end.

What the DOJ guidance says

The Justice Department’s guidance on web accessibility and the ADA, dated March 18, 2022, lists banks among businesses open to the public, says businesses have flexibility in how they comply but must make online services accessible, and points to WCAG and the Section 508 standards as helpful technical standards. It also says the department has no regulation setting detailed standards for businesses, and that automated checkers and overlays need care: a clean report does not mean a site is accessible.

WCAG 2.2 and what it added

WCAG 2.2 became a W3C Recommendation on October 5, 2023, and its current version is dated December 12, 2024. W3C’s summary of what is new lists nine success criteria added since WCAG 2.1 and one, 4.1.1 Parsing, removed as obsolete.

Disclosures, PDFs and the FDIC sign

Fee schedules and account terms often have to exist as documents, but the facts customers need should also be on the page as text, and any PDF should be tagged. The FDIC sign must be real, readable text that wraps, not a fixed image that breaks at 320 pixels.

Audits, remediation and monitoring are covered on our ADA-compliant website design page; on every build we test accessibility against WCAG 2.2 AA before launch.

Security on the public site: headers, scripts and domains

A bank’s public site should not hold account data, but it is a phishing target and the doorway to the systems that do. Modern HTTP security headers, careful script control and clear domain ownership close most of the obvious gaps.

The definitions behind the table

MDN’s references describe Strict-Transport-Security and Content Security Policy in detail, and the OWASP Secure Headers Project documents the headers and tools for testing them. Settings are agreed with the bank’s information security team; there is no single correct policy for every site.

Third-party scripts are the soft spot

Chat widgets, analytics, tag managers, accessibility tools and ad pixels all run with the page’s privileges. Keep a written inventory, load each from an approved source, use Subresource Integrity hashes where a file is fixed, and keep marketing scripts off login, opening and application pages.

Who owns the domain, DNS and certificates

The bank should own the registrar account, DNS and certificates, with named people and recovery details on file. An agency that holds them makes the bank dependent on the agency and harder to audit.

Hardening, monitoring and malware response are covered on our website security services page.

Third-party risk: what a bank’s vendor team will ask a web agency

A web agency with access to the bank’s site, analytics or hosting is a third party under the banking agencies’ guidance, so expect a due diligence questionnaire before the contract and monitoring after it.

The 2023 interagency guidance, still in effect

The Federal Reserve, FDIC and OCC published the Interagency Guidance on Third-Party Relationships on June 9, 2023. It covers any business arrangement, including outsourced services and consultants, and describes a life cycle of planning, due diligence and selection, contract negotiation, ongoing monitoring and termination, with more rigorous oversight for relationships that support critical activities. How deep a bank’s review of its web agency goes depends on its own risk assessment.

The September 2026 proposal

The OCC, in coordination with the Federal Reserve, the FDIC and the NCUA, issued proposed replacement guidance in OCC Bulletin 2026-46 on September 11, 2026; the Federal Register notice followed on September 15, with comments due November 16, 2026. It would replace the 2023 guidance and its supplemental resources once final, asks institutions to tailor oversight to the reasonably assessed risk of each relationship, and states it would not set enforceable standards. Until then, the 2023 guidance applies.

Information security standards for service providers

The interagency information security guidelines, reproduced for FDIC-supervised banks in Appendix B to 12 CFR Part 364, require due diligence in selecting service providers, contract terms requiring appropriate safeguards and, where the risk assessment calls for it, monitoring that includes reviewing audits or test results. An agency should be able to answer those points in writing.

What a web agency should have ready

A description of who will have access to what and how access is removed, how credentials are stored, how incidents are reported and how fast, which subcontractors and tools touch the bank’s site, where backups are kept, and how the site and its data are handed back at the end. Answers should describe controls that actually run, not a policy library.

Banking website UI design: patterns that help customers act

Banking website UI design is mostly about getting people to the task they came for: log in, find a rate, open an account, call someone, report fraud. A few patterns do most of the work.

Navigation by audience

Personal, business, commercial and wealth customers look for different things. Top-level navigation by audience, with login, search, locations and help always visible, works for many banks and scales from a community bank to a regional one.

Product comparison tables

Checking and savings accounts are easiest to choose side by side: monthly fee and how to avoid it, minimum to open, yield, and features in one HTML table, with the full terms one click away. The same table becomes the source for the product pages.

Fraud and security notices

A site-wide notice slot for active scams, controlled by a small set of approvers and easy to switch off, beats a buried news post. Keep it from covering focused elements on scroll, which WCAG 2.2’s focus-not-obscured criterion addresses.

Targets sized for thumbs

Rate tabs, footer links and map pins are where small tap targets cluster. WCAG 2.2’s minimum is 24 by 24 CSS pixels, with exceptions; most bank designs go larger on primary actions such as login and open an account.

What do the best designed bank websites have in common?

The best designed bank websites are not the most decorated ones. They are fast, plain about fees and rates, consistent about where help lives and honest about who the bank is.

Best banking website design is mostly restraint

Lists of the best banking website designs tend to judge screenshots. A better test is a task: can a customer find the routing number, today’s certificate rate with its terms, the nearest open branch and the fraud line in under a minute on a phone? The best banking website design passes that test on every template.

Banking website design inspiration: where to look

Peer banks are the most useful references, because they work under the same rules. The FDIC’s BankFind Suite lists insured institutions and their websites, so a team can review banks of a similar size and market. Concept shots on design showcase sites rarely include disclosures, the FDIC sign or accessible contrast, so treat them as mood, not as plans.

Web design for ROI at a bank

Web design for ROI at a bank comes from fewer abandoned applications, fewer calls about things the site should answer, and more accounts opened and funded from the traffic the bank already has. Those are the numbers to set before design starts.

Content and compliance workflow in the CMS

The CMS should make the compliant path the easy one: roles that match who approves what, components that carry required fields, and a version history that doubles as evidence.

Roles and approvals

Editors draft, compliance approves anything with a rate, term, claim or disclosure, and only a small set of people can publish. Locked components, such as the legal footer, the FDIC sign and the Equal Housing Lender block, change only through a developer release.

Version history as evidence

Every published version stored with date, author and approver answers the question an examiner asks about a past rate or promotion, and supports Regulation DD’s two-year retention without a separate screenshot archive.

Disclosures in HTML and PDF

Publish fee schedules and account terms as HTML pages where possible, with dated PDF versions for download. The FDIC’s answers say the digital sign is generally not required on downloadable content, but accessibility rules still apply to it.

Speed and Core Web Vitals on a bank site

Google’s Core Web Vitals guidance asks for Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds and Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1. On bank sites, script-heavy chat and analytics tools and late-loading banners are the usual reasons pages miss them.

Our build commitments

We commit to numbers rather than adjectives on every build: mobile Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds on field data and Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1. The website speed optimization services page covers fixing an existing site.

Rates and branch facts in the HTML

Rates and hours rendered in the page’s HTML, rather than fetched by a script after load, are faster for customers and readable by every crawler. The search side of that choice is on our financial services SEO page.

How should a bank measure its website?

Measure the tasks the site exists for, across the handoffs to vendor platforms, with no customer data in analytics.

Keep customer data out of analytics

Analytics should never receive names, account numbers or balances, and advertising pixels should not run on authenticated or application pages. Agree the measurement plan with information security and compliance before launch.

Web design for financial services beyond banks

Credit unions, mortgage lenders, fintechs and advisors share much of the bank build, with different rules on top. The best web design for financial services starts from the rule text that governs the business.

What web design financial services firms can borrow from a bank build

Rate and terms components that enforce required fields, a CMS with approvals and version history, accessible tables, strict script control on application pages, and a vendor questionnaire answered before anyone asks. Those carry over to any regulated financial site.

Advisors and wealth firms

Web design for financial advisors runs under securities marketing rules rather than banking rules, including the SEC’s investment adviser marketing rule for registered advisers. Our financial advisor marketing page covers that market.

Mortgage and fintech

Mortgage sites lean on Regulation Z’s dwelling-secured rules and fair lending, and fintechs that partner with banks inherit the bank’s disclosure and vendor requirements. Our mortgage marketing and fintech marketing agency pages cover those markets.

Redesigns, rebrands and mergers

A bank redesign is also a migration: every old URL, document and form needs a destination, and after a merger two sites, two sets of disclosures and two customer bases meet on one domain.

The redirect map comes first

A bank’s redirect map should cover pages, PDFs and the campaign URLs printed on statements and mailers. Progression produces the redirect map before development starts. Migration support with redirect mapping starts from $3,200 as a one-off on our published price list.

Mergers and rebrands

Customers of the acquired bank need a page that answers what changes, when, and what to do about cards, online banking and routing numbers, written with compliance and updated through the conversion weekend. The search side of mergers and closures is on our SEO for banks page, and the general method on our website redesign services page.

How to create a bank website: the build process

A bank build runs in stages, with compliance and security reviews scheduled into each rather than bolted on at the end.

Discovery and inventory

List every page, document, vendor handoff and rule that touches the site, and who approves each. The inventory becomes the content plan, the redirect map and the compliance checklist.

Design and build

Design the components with compliance in the room, then build templates around them. Integrations, such as rate feeds and cross-domain measurement, are connected and tested on staging with the vendors.

Testing and launch

Test accessibility against WCAG 2.2 AA, speed on a throttled phone connection, security headers and every redirect, then hold a compliance walk-through of the staging site before launch. After launch, watch Search Console and error reports daily for the first weeks.

How much does web design for banks cost?

Cost depends on page count, integrations, accessibility and security testing, and how much content must be written and reviewed. The bands below are published US price bands for this work (market figures, not a Progression rate card); a quote follows a written scope.

What moves the price

Page and template count, the number of vendor handoffs, whether rates come from a feed, how many documents need converting to accessible pages, security testing depth, multilingual content and the number of review rounds. A community bank with one opening vendor and twenty templates sits at the lower end; a regional bank with wealth, mortgage and commercial lines sits far higher.

Web design rates and charges

Agencies price bank sites as fixed-scope projects, by phase, or by time and materials, with hosting, maintenance and monitoring billed monthly. Fixed scope suits a defined build; time and materials suits open-ended integration work. Ask for both the build price and the first year’s running costs.

How do you choose a bank website design company?

Choose by evidence: how the company handles the rules, the vendors and the reviews, not by how many bank logos it shows.

Red flags

A proposal that prices the site without asking about vendors, offers an overlay as accessibility, puts a login form on the CMS without discussion, or keeps the domain and hosting in the agency’s name.

How do banks use AI assistants to shortlist web design vendors?

Bank marketing and digital teams increasingly ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot or Google’s AI Overviews for a shortlist before a request for proposal.

The questions they ask

‘Which agencies design websites for community banks?’, ‘What does a bank website redesign cost?’, ‘What does the FDIC digital sign rule require on our homepage?’ and ‘How do we answer a third-party risk questionnaire for a web vendor?’ The rule questions are answered from regulators’ pages; the vendor questions depend on what assistants can find about each provider.

What assistants can draw on

Rule texts on eCFR, FDIC and OCC pages, W3C and Justice Department guidance, and provider pages that state services, scope, prices and process in plain text. Some platforms show labeled ads in or beside answers, including Google’s AI Overviews for US users. Running an ad is a separate matter from being cited in the answer.

The same logic for the bank’s own site

Customers ask assistants about rates, fees, branches and routing numbers too. Pages that state those facts accurately, in text, with dates, are easier for any assistant to repeat correctly. Our AEO for banks page covers how banks get named and quoted correctly in AI answers.

Related services for bank and credit union websites

A bank website project usually touches several of the services below.

• Website design and development
• Website redesign services
• Landing page design
• Website maintenance
• SEO for banks
• Bank marketing agency
• AEO for banks
• Financial services SEO
• Credit union marketing agency
• AEO for credit unions
• AEO for financial services
• Fintech marketing agency
• ADA-compliant website design
• Website security services
• Website speed optimization
• Website migration services
• Custom website development
• WordPress development
• UI and UX design
• Corporate website design
• Website development cost
• Website hosting cost
• Fintech software development
• Marketing analytics

Frequently asked questions