Today's News

WASHINGTON

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Majority Leader Trent Lott said the Senate will vote on financial reform in early May. Page 2

NATIONAL/GLOBAL

Fleet Boston Corp. would use BankBoston's risk management tools, an executive said. Page 3

Bank One said it will put its name on all First Chicago NBD branches by late September but that computer system conversions may not be completed until 2001. Page 5

COMMUNITY/REGIONAL

To win in Washington, community bankers must put time and money into building relationships with their representatives in Congress, a veteran lobbyist told bankers at the IBAA conference. Page 6

INVESTMENT PRODUCTS

An Illinois wholesaler of unit investment trusts said it plans to offer a private-label product through Mercantile of St. Louis. Page 7

Fleet would bring the bulk of the investment management business to its planned merger with BankBoston. Page 8

MORTGAGES

A rift between lenders and the government-sponsored enterprises over mortgage insurance widened with Freddie Mac's announcement that it will shortly offer a reduced-cost insurance option. Page 9

DIGITAL FRONTIERS

ON-LINE BANKING: Small banks are breaking into the ranks of those with the best-run Internet sites, according to Gomez Advisors' latest quarterly ranking. Page 11

TECHNOLOGY

A community bank in Indiana is altering its approach to retail banking based on insight gained from a data warehousing project. Page 12

CLS Services Ltd. of London said it will suspend the operations of Exchange Clearing House Ltd., a multilateral foreign exchange netting service it acquired in 1997. Page 12

MARKETS

Shares of First Union were up strongly on Wednesday on word that the company was preparing to give Wall Street a closer look at its operations. Back page