Today's News

WASHINGTON

Top executives from the two national ATM networks, testifying before a Senate committee, defended their decision to let members levy surcharges. Page 2

REGIONAL BANKING

Mercantile Bancorp. of St. Louis hopes to form a mortgage banking subsidiary and has hired an investment banking firm to help it. Page 4

Chase Manhattan said it plans to add 1,100 back-office jobs at its Tampa operations facility. Page 5

COMMUNITY BANKING

Just days after First Union pumped up the volume on Virginia banking activity, a large community banking company is paying up for its debut in northern Virginia. Page 6

Missouri's First Banks is taking a series of steps, including two acquisitions, to strengthen its Northern California presence. Page 6

MORTGAGES

William Aldinger learned the ropes while lending to the blue-bloods, but he's made his mark at Household International with a decidedly blue-collar clientele. Page 8

Norwest Mortgage plans to boost its correspondent business by purchasing subprime, jumbo, and other loans that it used to shun. Page 9

INVESTMENT PRODUCTS

Bryn Mawr Bank and much bigger banks are looking to their charitable foundations practices to help build the wealth management business. Page 10

Marine Midland Bank is expanding its customer information kiosks to include information centers that will offer stock market data from the World Wide Web. Page 11

CORPORATE FINANCE

Real estate companies have a much higher profile, says Stephen Sterrett, treasurer of Simon DeBartolo Group, and that gives banks a better feeling for the credit they're underwriting. Page 12

BancAmerica Securities priced a $100 million high-yield offering for supermarket chain Stater Brothers Holdings. Page 12

CREDIT/DEBIT/ATMs

Visa extolled its Partner Program - which it has held up as a competitive response to MasterCard's Mondex smart card - to a gathering of vendors. Page 13

Determined shopper David Marlin is designing a Web site that lists companies on the Internet where people can make secure credit card purchases. Page 16

TECHNOLOGY

Financial industry consulting has become a growth business for a transformed IBM. Page 18

Checkfree entered into an alliance with International Billing Services to promote electronic bill presentments. Page 19

MARKET MONITOR

Citicorp shook off a blue Monday to lead bank stocks to yet another market-beating rally on Tuesday. Back page