Today's News

MORTGAGES: SOMEWHAT SURPRISINGLY, adjustable-rate mortgages continued to gain popularity in January, making up 59% of all mortgages closed - the highest monthly figure since 1988. The figure had been 55% in December. Analysts, who have been expecting ARMs to tail off, said indications of a coming decline remain. Page 13 WASHINGTON: A NUMBER of banking trade groups have asked a federal appeals court to let stand a December ruling allowing Owensboro (Ky.) National Bank to sell insurance. Page 3 BANKERS WILL FIND it more expensive to overdraw their Fed Wire accounts under a fee schedule approved by the Federal Reserve Board. Page 2 REGIONAL BANKING: INTENSIFYING their effort to gain control of Compass Bancshares, dissident shareholders have sent a "fight letter" and preliminary proxy statement to the Alabama company's investors. Page 4 SAYING HE HAS a sense of "ownership" about the strategies in place at Old Kent Financial Corp., president David Wagner took on the additional title of chief executive. Page 4 COMPLIANCE: TO ENCOURAGE self-testing for lending discrimination, HUD has joined the Justice Department in deciding not to use a bank's results against it during an investigation. But HUD said such results could be used if a fair- lending case goes to trial. Page 7 FLEET FINANCIAL Group plans to hold a party on Capitol Hill today to celebrate the first anniversary of its $8 billion, three-year community reinvestment plan. The company will announce it has made more than $2 billion in loans and mortgages to individuals with low-to-moderate incomes. Page 7 INVESTMENT PRODUCTS: AFTER A YEAR of depressed sales, the mutual fund drought may be coming to an end. That was the view expressed by bankers and fund executives in a round of interviews this week. Page 10 COMMUNITY BANKING: COMMUNITY BANKERS are much more concerned with losing market share than they are with the regulatory burden, a preliminary survey by the American Bankers Association and Bank Marketing Association shows. Page 10 TECHNOLOGY: FIRST UNION is beefing up its mainframe computers, installing four high- capacity processors from Amdahl Corp. Page 16 CREDIT/DEBIT/ATMs: H. EUGENE LOCKHART, finishing his first year as president and CEO of MasterCard International, seems to exude even more optimism and confidence than he had going in. In an interview, he gives his assessment of how things have gone so far. Page 8 FINANCE: JUDGING FROM the tightening of bank bonds, the market believes the Fed has finished raising interest rates. Back page ANTICIPATING a brighter future for bank stocks, PNC Investment Management and Research has added Comerica Inc. and First Chicago Corp. to its "primary focus" list. Back page