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

DATE: THURSDAY, July 27, 1995                   TAG: 9507270074
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C.                                LENGTH: Medium

BANK WANTS TO COMBINE BRANCHES

NationsBank Corp. has asked federal regulators for permission to combine its banks in four states, including Virginia and the District of Columbia, into a single bank, part of a move officials say could save $50 million a year.

If permission comes by fall, the banks will operate as one in the first quarter of 1996. The holdup, says bank spokeswoman Mary Waller, is in NationsBank's computer systems, which will not be able to talk to each other until then.

The move would mean that a NationsBank customer who lives in Charlotte, N. C. for example, could walk into a branch in Washington, D.C., and make a deposit. A customer can't do that today because interstate banking laws require banks to keep their operations in each state separate.

``It's a customer convenience issue,'' Waller said Wednesday.

The bank will also save money because it won't have to maintain separate headquarters, boards of directors and accounting systems in each state.

The Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act, passed by Congress last year, allows all banks to branch across state lines without maintaining separate headquarters. The law takes effect in June 1997.

NationsBank isn't waiting that long, however. In February 1994, the Charlotte-based bank won permission to combine its Washington, D.C., and Maryland banks into one based in Maryland. It did so by using an 1866 law that lets a nationally chartered bank move its headquarters in any direction within 30 miles, even if it means crossing a state border.

NationsBank used the same law to combine its North Carolina and South Carolina banks in January and its Virginia and Maryland banks this month.

New state laws allow NationsBank to combine separate banks with headquarters in North Carolina and Virginia. The legislatures in those two states voted to eliminate interstate barriers July 1, ahead of Congress' schedule.

by CNB