WASHINGTON - The so-called Oakar banks aren't the only financial institutions looking to pay a smaller share of the cost of capitalizing the Savings Association Insurance Fund.
Two much-smaller groups - one made up of 23 commercial banks, the other of eight thrifts - argue that it isn't fair to make them pay the full 85- basis-point fee on savings fund-insured deposits.
The Oakars, Bank Insurance Fund members that have acquired thrift deposits, have convinced the House and Senate banking committees to give them special consideration on the thrift fund fee.
"They're talking about giving the Oakar banks a break," said Timothy E. Keller, president of Farmers and Merchants State Bank of Wayne, Neb. "Well, if anybody ought to get a break it's the de novo Sasser banks."
Mr. Keller's bank was formed in 1990 by a group of investors who bought from the Resolution Trust Corp. an office building and $14 million in deposits that had belonged to a failed savings and loan. All the bank's deposits are insured by the thrift fund.
Mr. Keller and executives of 11 other banks in the same situation - they call themselves "de novo Sasser banks," differentiating themselves from the converted thrifts known simply as "Sasser banks" - wrote last week to the chairmen of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Banking Committee asking for a break.
According to Diane Casey, director of financial institutions regulatory issues for Grant Thornton here, there are 23 such institutions in all, ranging in asset size from $12 million to $1 billion.
"They're so small in aggregate that helping them is not going to hurt anybody," said Ms. Casey, who is representing 12 of the banks.
The group of eight thrifts - going by the name "5(i) banks" - is doing its lobbying more quietly, but so far with more success.
The thrifts, six of which are in New York state, converted in the early 1980s from FDIC-insured state savings banks to federally chartered institutions under the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp. in order to acquire thrifts insured by that now-defunct agency.
The Senate Banking Committee voted to give these institutions the same 5% thrift fund-fee discount it gave the Oakar banks. The House Banking Committee, however, did not mention them in its legislation.
Robert R. Davis, director of economic research for America's Community Bankers, the thrift trade group that has been the most vocal critic of the Oakar banks' arguments, said the same criticisms apply to the de novo Sassers and the 5(i) banks.
"Frankly, many of those who now suggest, 'Gee, we need a break,' also bought assets for less money than they would have paid otherwise," Mr. Davis said.
