Today's News

WASHINGTON

Credit unions plan to launch a national advertising campaign Thursday that paints a Scrooge-like image of banks. "Now the big banks that charge higher loan rates and high ATM fees want to take away your right to join a credit union," one ad says. Page 2

The Financial Accounting Standards Board reissued its controversial derivatives proposal. Page 2

Real estate markets have remained bullish this summer, according to the Federal DepositInsurance Corp.'s latest survey of examiners and liquidators. Page 3

COMMUNITY BANKING

Harbor Florida Bancorp, one of the state's biggest homegrown banking companies, is going to shed its mutual status so it can better play the acquisition game. Page 5

REGIONAL BANKING

Hibernia corp.'s chief executive officer, Stephen Hansel, came to the company in 1992, the same year it was forced by regulators to divest its Texas holdings. Since then he has built a new management team, reentered the Lone Star State, and grabbed top market share in the bank's home state of Louisiana. Page 4

MORTGAGES

Buying Barnett could put NationsBank within reach of being the nation's largest mortgage servicer. The deal would bring it much of HomeSide, and analysts say it would probably buy the rest. Page 9

TECHNOLOGY

A Java expo in New York was supposed to bring some confirmation that Sun's highly touted programming language can change many basic aspects of business computing for the better. Instead, the 15,000 who attended got caught in a debate set off by a newspaper article. Page 12

INVESTMENT PRODUCTS

The Hartford, the top seller of annuities through banks, has named an executive to lead its effort to sell more life insurance through that channel. Page 14

MARKET MONITOR

While the rest of the market soared Tuesday, shares of NationsBank and Barnett slipped in reaction to the banks' merger agreement. Page 22

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