WASHINGTON -- For the second time in 10 days, the House has defeated legislation that would have significantly changed the nation's 60-year-old banking laws.

The vote last night, a defeat for both the White House and the House Democratic leadership, seemed likely to force President Bush and Congress to limit banking legislation this year to a measure that would do little more than shore up the nearly depleted deposit insurance fund by providing tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer loans.

The General Accounting Office predicted yesterday that the insurance fund would be out of money within the next six weeks. The fund, which has rapidly declined as a result of the largest number of bank failures since the Great Depression, now stands behind more than $2 trillion in bank deposits.

The Senate, meantime, pressed ahead with its own version of banking legislation, but had cast no decisive votes last night.

The House defeat, by a vote of 227-191, came moments after the representatives narrowly agreed to attach a provision supported by Bush that would have permitted the nation's strongest banks to expand across state lines but would have continued to restrict the industry from entering the insurance and real estate businesses.