Today's News

CREDIT/DEBIT/ATMs: WACHOVIA CORP., seeking to capitalize on consumer anxiety about rising interest rates, is offering a lifetime prime rate commitment on MasterCard and Visa credit cards. The bank pegged its Prime For Life product at whatever the prime interest rate is - currently 9%. Page 12 PROCESSING and consulting services for banks that offer purchasing cards to corporations are being introduced by Electronic Data Systems Corp. Page 12 WASHINGTON: BANK OR THRIFT subsidiaries of the same holding company can do basic banking services - such as handling deposits and withdrawals - for each other's customers, the Office of Thrift Supervision has decided. Page 2 THE FED should drop a notification requirement from a plan meant to let trustee banks invest trust proceeds in mutual funds they advise, bankers have urged in comments on the proposal. Page 3 REGIONAL BANKING: HOUSEHOLD INTERNATIONAL's banking division has agreed to sell $2.9 billion of deposits and 90 branches in California, Maryland, and Virginia in order to focus on its core midwestern markets. Page 4 COMMUNITY BANKING: AN APPEALS COURT rejected the Office of Thrift Supervision's request for a rehearing of its arguments to uphold an industry ban against Young Il Kim, former president of Delta Savings Bank, a California thrift seized in 1991. Page 6 TWO DEFENDANTS charged with insider trading in the stock of Rochester Community Savings Bank will pay the government $86,500 as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Page 7 MORTGAGES: PUBLIC COMMENT is being sought by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight as the first public step toward creating a new risk-based capital standard for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Page 8 WACHOVIA is the latest to join the parade of banks leaving mortgage servicing as adequate economies of scale become progressively more difficult to achieve. Its $9 billion servicing portfolio is on the block. Page 8 INVESTMENT PRODUCTS: ANNUITY SUPPLIERS are finding that good credit ratings and a broad array of products are no longer enough to capture bank business. Financial institutions today want broad support. Page 10 CRESTAR FINANCIAL unveiled a retirement plan service aimed at small businesses. The new 401(k) plan includes many of the options the Richmond, Va.-based banking company offers larger companies. Page 10 TECHNOLOGY: NEAR-TERM PROSPECTS in the payments systems business prompted Montgomery Securities to increase its 1995 earnings estimates for First Data Corp. and SPS Transaction Services Inc. Page 15 FINANCE: J. RICHARD FREDERICKS, the well-regarded Montgomery Securities bank analyst, plans to join the San Francisco firm's corporate finance department, reportedly to help advise large, regional banks. Back page PESO DEVALUATION and a likely Mexican recession repulse many who look at Mexican banks, but Campbell Chaney, West Coast banking analyst at Rodman & Renshaw, sees an opportunity for some U.S. institutions to get into Mexico more cheaply than expected. Back page

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