Today's News

WASHINGTON

The Financial Accounting Standards Board voted to delay by six months the effective date of its controversial derivatives rule. The board chairman said the postponement would give banks more time to focus on the costly and time-consuming process of fixing the year-2000 problem. Page 2

REGIONAL BANKING

Although banks were frustrated in 1997 by politics - most notably by the failure of Congress to enact financial modernization legislature - they came out of the year in pretty good shape. However, this former chairman of the FDIC writes, if bankers tune out of politics in 1998, they could get their heads handed to them. Page 5

COMMUNITY BANKING

Hoping to reap the benefits of a more prestigious market, Community Bank System of DeWitt, N.Y., and Triangle Bancorp of Raleigh, N.C., are moving to the New York Stock Exchange from Nasdaq's National Market System. Page 6

CORPORATE FINANCE

While occupancy rates at the nation's hotels have inched downward in recent years, construction has been on the rise, according to data from Coopers & Lybrand and Smith Travel Research. Page 7

MORTGAGES

Green Tree Financial, St. Paul, is going to have to take an additional charge to cover faster-than-expected prepayments in its newer securitized mortgage pools, according to a recent report. Page 10

INVESTMENT PRODUCTS

So far this year, investors have tripled the amount of money they put into bond and income mutual funds. Page 12

CREDIT/DEBIT/ATMs

With all the planning, money, and care that goes into card advertising, selecting a generic-sounding name for promotions seems like a minor detail. But constant exposure can plant those names in consumers' minds, conferring minor celebrity on the chosen ones, who are often bank employees. Page 20

TECHNOLOGY

ON-LINE BANKING: International Billing Services, which prints and processes monthly statements for many major billers, is offering companies two new methods of electronic delivery. Page 22

Hewlett-Packard and American Express said they have developed software to safeguard electronic commerce transactions and the Web sites and data bases involved in processing them. Page 22

MARKET MONITOR

Start-up Falcon Financial of Stamford, Conn., is crafting a new type of security that lets investors buy into the cachet of certain automakers. Page 30

WEEKLY REPORT: INTERNATIONAL

The announcement that Sumitomo Bank wants to sell its California operations has analysts betting that other troubled Japanese banks will follow suit. Page 8

First Union's planned acquisition of CoreStates would give the banking giant a valuable international network that would have taken years to build from scratch. Page 8

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