May 17 — The presidents of two major thrift industry groups Thursday applauded the growing unification of savings banks and savings and loan associations and called for closer cooperation in the future.
At the opening session of the 48th annual conference of the National Association of Mutual Savings Banks, NAMSB president Harlan J. Swift and Hans Gehrke Jr., president of the United States Savings and Loan League, both spoke on the importance of the growing collaboration between their groups.
"The increasingly powerful theme of thrift industry unification, a theme played to the constant, challenging counterpoint of commercial bank competition," was cited by Mr. Swift as the most important development of the past year for savings institutions.
He said: "The basic identity of interest between savings banks and savings and loan associations will not only remain but will grow stronger as commercial banks intensify their attacks on the very concept of an independent mutual thrift system."
Mr. Swift, who also is president, Erie County Savings Bank, Buffalo, N. Y., said that the "cannibalistic propensities of commercial banking" have long been evident.
During the past decade, he stated, commercial bank maneuvers have been directed increasingly at thrift institutions, as commercial banks have become vigorous competitors for savings and time deposits in an effort to counteract the effect of rising interest rates and contracyclical monetary policy on their demand deposit growth.
"This commercial bank thrust, it seems to me," he declared, "carries increasingly less force in view of the growing internal strength of our institutions and the growing external ties with the savings and loan industry."
As to industry unification, Mr. Swift pointed out two milestones of the past year. He referred to the development of the Federal Savings Institutions Bill (H. R. 13718), which is strongly supported by the mutual and S&L industries, and to the establishment of the Joint Savings Bank-Savings and Loan Committee on Urban Problems.
Taken together, he said, they are a comprehensive blueprint for unified thrift industry action to meet the changing financial needs of the communities in which Americans will be living in the years ahead…
