Today's News

ONE MONTH after buying Mercantile, Firstar is preparing to merge the St. Louis banking company's asset management unit into its own advisory company. Page 7

HUNTINGTON reported a dramatic increase in third-quarter revenue from sales of mutual funds and annuities. Page 8

A TECHNOLOGY company affiliated with a California community bank says it has come up with a way to let consumers make Internet purchases with debit cards. Page 10

SANCHEZ, which provides technology for Internet banking, has introduced a pricing structure that sacrifices short-term gains to long-term benefits. Page 14

ATM MAKER Diebold, whose stock and performance have been battered since early last year, is showing signs of improvement. Page 14

BIG BANKS' mortgage units used the third quarter to demonstrate the benefits of scale, posting improved earnings despite falling loan volume. Norwest's Mark Oman says that loan servicing and production are counter-cyclical businesses. Page 9

INTERNET-ONLY BANKS took four of the top five positions in the latest quarterly ranking of Internet banking sites by Gomez Advisors, scoring with customer service. Page 15

SAN DIEGO BANKS have begun an ad campaign aimed at people who still doubt banks will be ready for the year-2000 date change. Page 18

A DOZEN Midwestern community banks and credit unions have reached deals with Amazon.com in an attempt to attract more traffic to their budding Web sites. Page 18

BANK INVESTORS are awaiting official data due out Thursday that will hint at the degree to which the economy might slow as it reacts to year-2000 computer problems. Page 25

BANKERS HOPING to escape the rigors of risk management ought to think again. Regulators are convinced the process soon will become a necessity for almost all banks. Page 30

THE PRESIDENT of a securities dealers trade group warned broker-dealers not to be complacent about customer suitability when selling securities on-line. Back page

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