REGIONAL BANKING
First Commerce of New Orleans has become one of the first banks to incorporate customer profitability data in a marketing plan, which sacrifices short-term profit for customer retention. Page 4
COMMUNITY BANKING
Colorado thrifts' first-quarter performance was a welcome respite from three years of declining earnings. Page 6
Though assets fell last year at federally chartered thrifts, the minority-owned companies among them racked up a 26% increase. Page 7
MORTGAGES
Advisers to HUD couldn't agree how to fine-tune the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, so they gave the agency seven competing rule proposals before calling it quits this week. Page 8
Large lenders' servicing portfolios will mushroom during the next five years while small lenders scamper for niches they can mine, predicts the chairman of Amerin Guaranty. Page 8
WASHINGTON
Regulators scrapped a plan to require that banks use a standard model to calculate capital for interest rate risk, and industry officials cheered. "We've never been able to come up with something that is satisfactory," said Fed Governor Edward W. Kelley Jr. The Fed was the last agency to drop the model. Page 3
New York is an early battleground in the insurance industry's state-by- state effort to roll back banks' gains the Supreme Court's Barnett decision. Page 3
INVESTMENT PRODUCTS
Balanced mutual funds managed by banks are outperforming those run by nonbank competitors, and attracting interest and assets. Page 10
Mellon Bank's blockbuster 1994 deal for Dreyfus Corp. are seen to have chilled the market for bank acquisitions of mutual fund companies. Page 10
CREDIT/DEBIT/ATMs
Chase Manhattan dropped its Visa check program to issue MasterCard's competing debit brand. Page 13
Citibank struck pay dirt again in the growing field of electronic benefits transfer when it won the bidding to provide those services in six western states. Page 13
TECHNOLOGY
Three securities trade processors are asking for details of a plan by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications to expand links between banks and investment managers and broker-dealers. Page 14
PNC has had relatively few headaches in combining corporate cash management records after its merger with Midlantic. It is using a new software product from AFS & LSC. Page 14
