Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 23, 1994                   TAG: 9402230299
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

IN BUSINESS

WASHINGTON - The once-endangered insurance fund for commercial banks is more than halfway back to full strength, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Tuesday.

At the end of 1993, the fund had a positive balance of $13.1 billion, the best in four years. That compares with deficits of $101 million a year earlier and $7 billion at the close of 1991.

Nearly 1,000 bank failures from 1987 through 1991 pushed the once-solvent fund deeply into the red, raising the prospect that a taxpayer-financed bailout such as the one for savings and loan institutions might be needed.

But favorable interest-rate conditions helped push failures to an 11-year low of 41 in 1993 and no banks have failed so far this year

In 1991, Congress authorized the FDIC to borrow money from the Treasury and pay it back as it collected insurance premiums from its member banks.

- Associated Press