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Regulatory problems for Advanta, Harleysville bank

Two local financial institutions, Montgomery County bank Harleysville National Corp. and small-business credit-card issuer Advanta, disclosed unrelated regulatory problems yesterday.

Two local financial institutions, Montgomery County bank Harleysville National Corp. and small-business credit-card issuer Advanta, disclosed unrelated regulatory problems yesterday.

Harleysville said federal bank regulators had ordered it to boost capital reserves, used to cover loan losses, above the generally accepted levels at its Harleysville National Bank & Trust Co. unit by the end of the month.

To meet the new requirements, the bank said it was trying to raise capital, sell assets, or both. However, the bank said in a regulatory filing that it doubted it would achieve compliance with the new capital ratios in time and did not know what the consequence would be.

The second-biggest bank based in the Philadelphia region behind Wilmington Trust Co., Harleysville said it had already begun trying to raise money from private-equity investors. The bank had applied for federal bailout money, but withdrew its application at the end of April.

In a news release, Paul D. Geraghty, Harleysville's chief executive, blamed the bank's problems on "residential real estate development and home equity loans."

At Advanta, which closed nearly a million customers' credit cards to new charges on May 30, a plan to maximize its capital by buying back $1.4 billion worth of certain notes was dashed when the company failed to meet an unspecified regulatory condition, the Spring House company said.

Philip M. Browne, Advanta's chief financial officer, said it was a "banking regulatory issue," but he would not say which of Advanta Bank Corp.'s two regulators - the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. or the Utah Department of Financial Institutions, where it is chartered - raised the red flag.

Advanta offered last month to pay 65 percent to 75 percent of the face value of the notes, allowing it to book a gain and boosting its regulatory financial condition.