Today's News

COMMUNITY/REGIONAL

Pressure from activist investors is taking its toll on employees, other shareholders, and customers at community banks. Page 6

Bank analysts are watching National City Bancshares of Indiana after the company's top executive resigned in the wake of a failed buyout. Page 7

MORTGAGES

HOME EQUITY: Bank One expects on-line applications for its home equity loans to grow now that use of the service jumped 400% in the week after it was made available nationwide. Page 8

Greenwich Street Capital Partners II, a Citigroup-owned fund, will merge IMC Mortgage into a subsidiary and hand the troubled subprime lender another $40 million in working capital, IMC said. Page 9

INVESTMENT PRODUCTS

Pioneer Group, a Boston-based investment and mutual fund company that lost money in overseas ventures, said it could return to profitability as early as the second quarter. Page 10

NATIONAL/GLOBAL

Conseco is seeking to distinguish itself in the fight for the less- affluent consumer with an irreverent, attitude-heavy ad campaign designed to make it the brand for financial services in the segment. Chief executive officer Stephen Hilbert says he wants Conseco to be viewed as the "Wal-Mart of financial services." Page 4

TECHNOLOGY

Being tops in retail banking used to be about having the best products. Now it is about delivering them in the best ways-or at least experimenting with alternatives, say strategists. Page 13

mass market use of Open Financial Exchange, Sun Microsystems' Java programming language, and other technologies could undermine the benefits bankers are beginning to reap from Internet initiatives, writes Edward Neumann of Farragut Group. Page 15

CARDS

Verisign announced an extensive agreement with Netscape Communications to deliver digital certificate services through the Netcenter portal. Page 19

Security Dynamics Technologies downsized a high-powered network security system onto a smart card. Page 20

MARKETS

Financial services hedge funds were among the poorest performers in January while other funds rebounded from last year's lackluster returns, a well-known hedge consultant said. Page 30

Bank Stock prices held steady and economists saw no signs of near-term interest rate movements in the wake of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's testimony on the economy. Pages 30, 32

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