Capital Briefs: Ohio Insurer Is Given Thrift Charter by OTS

Grange Mutual Casualty Co., a Columbus, Ohio, insurance company, won permission from the Office of Thrift Supervision on Tuesday to open a full-service savings bank.

Products offered by the Grange Bank, including consumer and home equity loans, certificates of deposit, and savings accounts, are to be distributed through the insurer's network of 1,000 agents. Grange Mutual operates in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia.

Grange Mutual has $860 million of assets and 600,000 policy holders. This charter is the third that the agency has awarded to a nonbanking company this month.

The OTS has awarded only 19 such charters since January 1997.

There are now 45 nonbanks with applications pending before the OTS: eight securities firms, 25 insurers, four manufacturers, and eight others.

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