Study, serendipity determine bank sites

In the year since the Colorado Legislature lifted restrictions on intrastate branch banking, state-chartered banks have opened 44 new branches, said Richard Fulkerson, state banking commissioner.That doesn˜t include locations that out-of-state holding companies converted to branch status after June 1997 when interstate branching restrictions were also removed, Fulkerson said.
Nor does it include convenience centers that have opened, such as automatic teller machines, because limited or partial banking centers are not branches per se, he explained.
"Legalistically speaking, a branch is any office location that accepts deposits and originates loans," Fulkerson said.
But while definitive regulations dictate the activities of…