Today's News

COMMUNITY BANKING: ROBERT F. MILLIGAN, Florida's newly elected bank regulator, has taken a step toward making good on a campaign promise: to try to turn the job into an appointive one. Page 8 AFTER THE RELEASE of data showing that the securities portfolios of state- chartered banks in Minnesota had depreciated by $178.7 million during 1994, the state Department of Commerce is cautioning banks to take a close look at their investments. Page 9 WASHINGTON: THE SENATE BANKING Committee chastised the National Credit Union Administration for lax oversight of Capital Corporate Credit Union, the liquidity center seized by the government Jan. 31. Page 2 DEVAL L. PATRICK, an assistant U.S. attorney general, promised recently that he would not punish bankers who use self-testing to uncover fair- lending problems. But he left too many potential pitfalls for the comfort of some banking lawyers. Page 4 A SECONDARY market for energy loans being considered by the Clinton administration could allow banks to breathe easier when lending to producers of oil products. Page 4 MORTGAGES: NATIONSBANK's mortgage unit recently paid almost $550 million for two mammoth pools of loan servicing, and Andrew D. Woodward Jr., the unit's president, shed his tag as the Hamlet of the business because of a hesitance to buy. Page 10 THE POSSIBILITY, however slight, that mortgage rates will break 10%, makes it useful to see what has happened in the past when rates did top that mark. And history suggests that nothing too much would result, writes Jon Holm, a journalist. Page 11 INVESTMENT PRODUCTS: WACHOVIA has renamed its brokerage unit Wachovia Investments, a move that the North Carolina banking company says underscores the breadth of services it now offers. Page 12 MANAGEMENT FEES motivated Summit Bancorp to take a hand in managing a fixed annuity that will be available in branches this year. It's a role that relatively few banks have taken. Page 12 THE SPREAD between rates on fixed annuities and one-year certificates of deposit sold by banks narrowed to 84 basis points in mid-February, according to a consultant who tracks the data, from a 94-point spread in mid-January. Page 13 CREDIT/DEBIT/ATMs: SECURED CREDIT cards are piquing the interest of more banks, particularly bigger ones. MasterCard says secured credit card accounts grew 114%, to 1.5 million, last year. Page 14 REBUTTING an Asian newspaper report, MasterCard says its participation in the Guangzhou Golden Card project has been given the green light by the People's Bank of China. Page 15 TECHNOLOGY: CHASE MANHATTAN has rolled out a multimillion-dollar client-server system for its retail banking business to offer customers one-stop banking. Page 17