Norwest Hires 1st Interstate Data Star

C. Webb Edwards, the First Interstate Bancorp. executive vice president who has led its huge systems conversion project, has decided to tackle a similar endeavor at Norwest Corp.

Minneapolis-based Norwest announced this week that it has hired him to head its technology-based operations.

Effective May 1, Mr. Edwards will become executive vice president and chief technology officer of Norwest Technical Services, which handles the processing and related operational services of all 2,700-plus Norwest branches operating in 15 states.

He will replace Brian R. Phillips, who will remain in an advisory capacity for an unspecified period before retiring, Norwest officials said.

In announcing Mr. Edwards' hiring, Norwest's chief executive cited his "excellent track record introducing and integrating new technology systems."

Mr. Edwards will help $59.3 billion-asset Norwest "achieve its goals of being recognized as the premier financial services company in each of the markets we serve," said CEO Richard Kovacevich in a written statement.

"It was the right time" for the move, said Mr. Edwards, who will report directly to Mr. Kovacevich.

The Norwest job is "a natural fit," he said. "They are doing a lot of the same things."

Richard W. Tappey, executive vice president at First Interstate, said Mr. Edwards' management skills will be missed. He said the bank's reengineering project remain in capable hands, those of senior vice presidents Timothy E. Sullivan and Terry Allen.

"It will be business as usual," Mr. Tappey said. "We feel that we have his departure covered very nicely."

At age 47, Mr. Edwards, a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University, assumes his new post with more than 22 years' experience in the industry, 10 of them with First Interstate.

Before joining First Interstate in 1984, Mr. Edwards was with Mercantile National Bank, Dallas for three years.

At the Dallas bank, he was first a vice president of check processing operations and later, a senior vice president of its items processing division.

He began his career in 1973 as a manager of check processing and later, a manager of fiscal agency services with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Mr. Edwards found out about Norwest's interest through informal correspondence, in which learned of the bank's plans to undertake a systems consolidation project similar in scope to that of First Interstate.

"I got more excited about it the further we got into it," Mr. Edwards recalled. "I'd say that over the course of 60 to 90 days, we both came to know each other a little better."

Although Norwest seems about to embark upon on a large-scale project, officials were mum as to the details.

If indeed Norwest does plan to homogenize its back office systems, it would hardly come as a surprise, since more banks are attempting to position themselves to benefit from interstate branching.

Although interstate branching doesn't go into effect until 1997, there are many plans in the works today, said Bert Ely, a principle with Ely & Co., Alexandria, Va. He said bank holding companies have several options when converting to interstate operations.

Some will do so formally, through the actual law, while others will make use of the 30-mile loophole, which allows holding companies to move main offices 30 miles - even across state lines - and operate them as branches.

In addition, buried in the Riegle-Neal interstate banking law is the so- called affiliates provision, which gives bank holding companies virtually all the benefits of interstate banking by permitting various banks to act as agents of an affiliated bank without being considered a branch.

"It's a very powerful provision, because on an intrastate or interstate basis it allows for a holding company to operate under different bank charters," Mr. Ely said. "It would let them do such things as close loans and accept deposits."

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