1.   As a result of the legislation approved today, state and federally chartered banks will remain on an equal level as state banks delve into interstate banking more deeply.

2.   Automated teller machines, the Internet and ever-faster computers have greatly eased interstate banking, encouraging the rise of fewer and larger banks once regulators permitted it.

3.   Banks offer a variety of reasons for merging, including the need to take advantage of global markets and new business opportunities opened by deregulation of interstate banking.

4.   Extensive interstate banking is also already the rule in the Northeast, where New York in particular has encouraged it.

5.   In the Southeast, particularly Florida, the advent of true interstate banking is likely to have even more effect.

6.   In the U.S., banks are rushing to join forces to become more efficient, particularly as they prepare for an era of unrestricted interstate banking.

7.   In the dawn of interstate banking, New England institutions trembled at the prospect of buyers from New York too big to fend off.

8.   Interstate banking could have less effect in the West, where barriers are already few.

9.   NationsBank, in fact, spearheaded the lobbying push for national interstate banking.

10.   Now, with the last restrictions on interstate banking lifted, huge banks are indeed emerging that are doing deals and buying up branches from coast to coast.