TAKING IT TO THE BANK

An application by General Motors to move into banking by setting up a federal thrift was approved on April 20 by U.S. regulators. The world’s largest automaker already had a solid presence in financial services through General Motors Acceptance Corp.’s auto-lending and home loan unit GMAC Mortgage Corp. Its new foray into banking will allow GM to offer a broad range of consumer banking products including checking and savings accounts, certificates of deposit and ATM machines. The new institution will be called GMAC Bank, based in Wilmington, Del.