"They wanted to move in their credit-card operation," says the banker.

Six months afterwards the same guy was arrested for running a stolen credit-card operation covering the whole north east.

The bill, which consumer advocates have criticized, is aimed at keeping banks' credit-card operations in the state.

In the 80's, favorable banking laws began to draw credit-card operations and other financial institutions to Delaware.

This was a clear victory for banks with interstate credit-card operations.

But in another case two decades ago, the Court interpreted that provision to apply to a bank's out-of-state credit-card operations.

He had landed on his feet as the head of Mellon Bank's credit-card operation.

Citicorp already runs its credit-card operations out of South Dakota.

Other credit-card operations, such as Chase Manhattan's, have pulled coverage on some of their cards.

The sale of the credit-card operations will only partly cover that requirement.