BANKING

Year’s First Bank Failure Reported: Mechanics National Bank of Paramount became the nation’s first bank failure of 1994, the government said. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency closed the bank, which had assets of about $165.8 million, because it was in an unsafe and unsound condition and had incurred losses that depleted its capital, said the OCC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which was named receiver on Friday. Losses totaled more than $21 million over two years, the government said. Home Bank of Signal Hill has assumed the insured deposits of the failed bank, the regulators said.