Today's News

MORTGAGES: LELAND C. BRENDSEL, Freddie Mac's chairman, said his agency expanded its mortgage portfolio at a record pace in the second quarter. But despite a big rise in the popularity of fixed-rate mortgages, quarterly earnings at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae grew only moderately. Page 14 REGIONAL BANKING: FOUR BIG WESTERN banks, including Wells Fargo, with a 13% gain, reported higher second-quarter earnings. And two big California thrifts - H.F. Ahmanson and Golden West Financial - posted declines from the 1994 quarter. Page 5 DEPOSITORS' QUEST for higher returns hurt second-quarter earnings at Midwest bank companies like Banc One and Fourth Financial, whose customers moved funds out of transaction accounts and into higher-cost time deposits. Page 6 COMMUNITY BANKING: CONVERSION-MINDED mutual institutions in Massachusetts are caught in a vise between state law and federal rules governing mutual-to-stock conversions. The conflict threatens to derail a state-chartered cooperative's conversion plan. Page 7 CREDIT/DEBIT/ATMs: KEYCORP, the nation's 11th-largest bank holding company, hired Stephen J. Hucal, national manager of credit policy at Sears, Roebuck and Co., to head its fledgling credit card business. Page 10 TOTAL SYSTEM Services has launched a joint venture that will offer credit card processing services to banks operating in Mexico. It has invested $6 million in its partnership with 11 Mexican banks that own a 51% stake. Page 11 TECHNOLOGY: THE PLANNED merger between First Chicago and NBD should generate significant cost savings from systems consolidations, bank officials said. Page 12 INTUIT INC. and MasterCard International said they will use a security protocol developed by Netscape Communications to protect on-line financial data. Page 13 INVESTMENT PRODUCTS: NATIONSBANK announced plans to integrate its private banking and personal trust services under one umbrella. The banking company said it would combine 30 private banking offices and 70 trust offices nationwide into 62 private client units. Page 22 JAMES MITCHELL & Co., a controversial annuities marketer through banks, obtained a stay of enforcement to stop the Florida Insurance Department from carrying out a final disciplinary order against Mitchell's marketing program at Barnett Banks. Page 23 WASHINGTON: EDWARD L. YINGLING, American Bankers Association chief lobbyist, praised a broad coalition of financial services trade groups that is urging House Speaker Newt Gingrich to keep a provision in the regulatory relief bill that would let banks affiliate with insurers. Page 4 THE SENATE Agriculture Committee refused to expand the list of those eligible to borrow from the Farm Credit System, but the agency may try to give itself the same thing by regulation. Page 2 FINANCE: A MARGIN SQUEEZE in the credit enhancement side of asset securitization was beginning to make the business unprofitable, but bankers have come up with a way to continue offering credit enhancement to their clients. Page 30