Up Another Notch

The year's second quarter ends this week, and for savings and loan associations that is a time when depositors are tempted to pocket their quarterly dividends and then pull out their mon ey. To prevent wide-scale withdrawals and to attract funds for mortgages, Los Angeles' Home Savings and Loan Association, the nation's biggest, boosted the rate on regular passbook accounts from 5% to 5 1/4% , and on longer, 36-month savings to 5 3/4% . Other S & Ls followed suit but may be squeezed for profits at these rates because many are less efficient than Chairman Howard Ahmanson's Home Savings.

Bucking other savings institutions, New York's Dime Savings Bank boosted its basic rates from 4 1/2% to 5% , the city's highest passbook rate. That's gravy for savers, but borrowers stand to get their lumps. Manhattan commercial bankers are saying that it is high time for another increase in the "prime rate," now 5 1/2% , from which all borrowing rates are scaled upward.

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