GM to Broaden Home Loan Unit Into Full-Service Thrift

General Motors Corp., the world’s largest auto maker, will own a savings and loan after regulators cleared the company to establish a thrift named GMAC Bank.

GM already is a large financial services provider through its General Motors Acceptance Corp. auto financing unit and its GMAC Mortgage Corp. home loan subsidiary. GM has been in the mortgage business since 1985 and last year made loans to 1.6 million U.S. households, according to the Office of Thrift Supervision, which granted the charter Thursday.

“GMAC Bank will be one of the nation’s largest originators and servicers of residential mortgage loans and home equity loans,” the OTS said in a news release.

The thrift will offer “full-service banking,” although its main business will be to hold GMAC Mortgage. Federal thrift charters convey broad powers to conduct financial services through the U.S., and a number of companies have used federal savings and loans as a vehicle to make expansion easier.

Although nonfinancial firms were banned from obtaining thrift charters by last year’s overhaul of financial services by Congress, Detroit-based GM filed its application before the May 4, 1999, deadline in the law, according to the OTS, a bureau of the Treasury Department.

Other commercial firms that beat the cutoff included retailers Nordstrom Inc. and Federated Department Stores Inc.