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Loan Curbs Adopted by IMF Group

The major nations of the International Monetary Fund, including the United States, broke a deadlock early today over an American proposal to limit the borrowing "access" of member nations to the IMF money pool next year and for several years thereafter.In a session after midnight, the finance ministers agreed to a compromise that will limit borrowings by member nations to 102 percent of their quotas (deposits) in the IMF over the next three years.

Associated Press The world's most plentiful substance is fast becoming its most precious.So precious that a half-million Chinese have just scratched out a canal system to get it to parched Tianjin. So precious that supertankers may soon reach halfway across the globe to carry it to dry Arabia. So precious that it is a crime in Arizona to dig for it without a license.

Turkey was a world leader in going bankrupt. It was the first nation for which major world financial institutions launched an international rescue effort and the first to come back from the brink.Its debt reorganization and economic overhaul in 1978-80 was so successful from the bankers' viewpoint that it became a text on how to rescue the increasing number of nations awash in huge loans.

King Hussein is considering severing Jordan's remaining political link with the Israeli-occupied West Bank, leaving the fate of Palestinians there to the Palestine Liberation Organization alone, authoritative sources said today.This step would be accomplished by calling elections in Jordan, possibly within the next few months, in which the West Bank would not participate.

Donald J. Watters of Chatham, retired vice president of the State Street Bank and Trust Co. in Boston, died unexpectedly at home Tuesday. He was 61. He was born in Winchester and was graduated from Bentley College of Accounting and Finance. He served in the Navy during World War II. Mr. Watters had been with State Street Bank and Trust for 38 years before retiring in 1976, when he moved to the Cape.

The International Monetary Fund Monday approved loans of $5.4 billion to Brazil to prevent a default on its foreign debt that could have jolted the world's banking system.In return, Brazil agreed to a set of austerity measures that will clear the way for private banks to extend scheduled repayments of existing loans or interest from the largest nation in Latin America.

Frederick H. Holland, 76, retired vice president of the First National Bank of Boston, where he worked 43 years, died Tuesday in Jordan Hosptal, Plymouth, after a lingering illness. Born in Boston, he was graduated from Dorchester High School and attended Williams College and Suffolk Law School, Boston. A World War II veteran, he served from 1943 to 1945 in the 704th Military Police Battalion as a technical sergeant.

Clarence Johnston Robinson, 84, a founder and past president of the Robinson Terminal Warehouse Corp. in Alexandria and a retired bank official, died of emphysema Oct. 22 at Alexandria Hospital.Mr. Robinson was born in Alexandria and lived there. He attended the University of Virginia. During World War I, he served in the Army. After the war, he became president of George H. Robinson and Sons Inc., his family's concern, which sold coal, fuel oil, and building supplies.

Chile - In an effort to shore up Chile's recession-weakened banking system, the government temporarily took over five banks and ordered two other banks and a small finance company closed today because of uncollectable debts. All financial enterprises in the country were shut until Monday while state administrators assumed control of the eight companies, including Chile's two biggest private banks.

When Genoan Christopher Columbus discovered the New World on Oct. 12, 1492, he could not have imagined the twist of fate that would call upon him 500 years later to lead a new voyage of discovery, in the opposite direction. The same home town that refused to fund his bright idea to reach the east by sailing west is now planning to spend 40 billion lira to have Columbus lead New World Americans back to this ancient Old World port.

Chase Manhattan Bank (USA) announced yesterday that it was constructing a 12-story office building in Wilmington to house a work force that it expects will reach 1,000 by 1987.Thomas A. Conigliaro, president and chief executive officer of the international bank's Delaware operation, said the $20 million structure would be built in the 800 block of Delaware Avenue, between the IBM building and Trinity Episcopal Church.

Last summer, Steven Adams, 17, beat the pavement looking for a job. He found nothing. So he went to summer school, "just to have something to do."This summer is different. Each morning, Steven Adams dons a gray suit, knots his striped tie and heads out the door of his Northeast Dade home to the glass-walled Republic National Bank. And while the hot sun rages and the beaches beckon, Adams and 47 other newly graduated high school seniors and college students.

The world's largest brewer and two of the largest banks in St. Louis are among the investors committed to a plan submitted last week to the National Hockey League to buy the Blues, a newspaper said.The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc., Emerson Electric Co., Boatmen's National Bank, and Centerre Bank have agreed to be part of a group investing in a operating capital fund.

Spain's Socialist government is moving swiftly to track down and seize the foreign assets of a giant holding company expropriated earlier this year on charges of widespread financial irregularities.Rumasa, which was Spain's largest private holding company before it was taken over by the government in February, owned about 400 firms in Spain, including at least 18 major banks.When William Scholtz traded in his silver half-dollars, he found a bank with a heart of gold. On the day his wife of 49 years was to undergo treatment for cancer, Scholtz, 76, of suburban Cudahy, found himself short of money so he decided to cash in the silver half-dollars that he and his wife, Serena, had been saving for 40 years. When he got to the First National Bank of Cudahy with a cigar box filled with the coins - some of which dated to 1896.

Chase Manhattan Bank of New York considers the proposed $3.5 billion coal slurry pipeline from Wyoming to Oklahoma economically feasible based on today's information, a high Chase officer testified Wednesday before the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.Commissioners Hamp Baker and Norma Eagleton took the license application of ETSI Pipeline Project under advisement after almost three days of testimony by the sponsoring firms and their major opponent.

In a world increasingly beset by economic instability stands one small organiza-tion with the huge mission of preserving global financial order - the International Monetary Fund. A distant affiliate of the United Nations, the IMF wields a power other international agencies only dream of: It can force its will on sovereign nations and bring big-time bankers to heel.

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