The world of banking is changing all the time, with many of those changes coming from regulators.

Sometimes, though, banks choose to make shifts of their own volition.

Take, for example, Wyoming-based Capital West National Bank, which in late December announced that it would change its charter and merge names with First National Bank of Wyoming, its sister-bank in Laramie.

Both banks had operated under the same holding company, but the Wyoming branches were known under the name First National Bank of Wyoming, while the lone Colorado branch, located in Fort Collins, was called Capital West National Bank.

Now, all three branches operate under the Capital West name, and, in a bigger move, under a state charter, as opposed to the national charter that the bank used to hold.

Switching to a state charter has a number of benefits, according to Doug Woods, Fort Collins president of Capital West.

First on the list is oversight closer to home.

State charters mean that banking regulators at the state Division of Banking do most of the overseeing, rather than being regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on a national level.

National regulators tend