Today's News

WASHINGTON: THE FEDERAL Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991 worked. That's the conclusion three FDIC economists drew after reviewing data on 69 failed banks - 45 sold before and 24 after the controversial law was enacted. Page 2 INVESTMENT PRODUCTS: FIRST UNION Corp. plans to add 100 brokers to its 200-member staff as part of an ambitious effort to steal business from nonbank brokerages. Page 8 THE TROUBLES faced by one upstate New York bank underscore some of the difficulties that small banks can encounter in managing mutual funds. Page 9 IN THE HEATED battle for affluent customers, banks are constantly being reminded that their nonbank competition is working overtime, and usually winning. And no rivals, it seems, worry banks more than brokerage firms do. Page 8 CREDIT UNIONS: RICHARD M. JOHNSON, CEO of the Western Corporate. the nation's largest corporate credit union, is worried that Washington regulators - overreacting to one institution's ruin - will reverse years of progress by slapping strict limits on all corporates. Page 10 CUNA MUTUAL's decision to quit offering mutual funds next month doesn't mean credit unions have soured on the products, industry officials and analysts said. In fact, a growing number of credit unions are interested in adding them to their product lines. Page 11 MORTGAGES: CWM MORTGAGE Holdings is entering the market for nonconforming residential mortgages as a wholesale buyer. The head of the its new wholesale unit said the industry "lacks a low-cost lender who can also promise a higher grade of loan." Page 12 KAUFMAN & BROAD Home Corp., a major builder, is offering 100% financing for home purchases and a refund of closing costs. Down payments are the toughest part for most first-time buyers, the CEO points out. Page 12 SAVVY DISTRIBUTORS, relying on their strategic advantage in "customer intimacy," may eventually displace mortgage banks, Larry Swedroe writes. Page 13 CREDIT/DEBIT/ATMs: A FORMER U S West card executive has joined Natwest Bank Delaware as senior vice president of marketing and business development. Page 18 TECHNOLOGY: BANK SYSTEMS stocks staged a spirited rally last week, driven by mostly higher earnings reports and a buying spree in technology issues overall. A big profit surprise came from software developer Hogan Systems, which nearly doubled earnings in the latest quarter. Page 16 WELLS FARGO has licensed a new parallel processing system from Informix Software to manage workflow and mine the bank's customer information files. Page 16