WASHINGTON-With five Fridays in the month, savings did grow faster than loans in October, but this is an anomaly and loans will far outpace savings by year-end, CUNA Chief Economist Bill Hampel said. In October, "savings were a bit stronger than loans again because there five Fridays in the month, but still for the year so far, we continue to see savings growth the weakest since back in 2000 and loan growth the strongest since back in 2000," he pointed out. Loan growth stood at 0.6%, while savings growth was up 1%, according to CUNA's Monthly Credit Union Estimates. Home equity loan growth led the pack at 2.7%, with adjustable rate mortgages next at 1.3% and new auto loans at 1.1%. Unsecured personal loans, fixed-rate first mortgages, and credit cards were all down slightly. Year-to-date growth hit 9.2% as of October. In the meantime, share drafts grew 4.8% as the fastest growing savings product in October, followed by one-year certificates at 1.3%, regular shares at 0.4%, and money market accounts at 0.2%. Individual Retirement Accounts fell 0.03%. Year-to-date savings growth was 5.2% at the end of October. The loan-to-savings ratio has held steady around 74% for the last three months, the estimates said. Credit unions can expect more of the same for the last two months of the year. "I think we're going to see hardly anymore savings inflows and some decent loan growth," Hampel explained. "I think loans will easily crack 10% and savings might not get much above 6% by the end of the year." He added, "The other interesting thing that we noted with interest rates picking up, credit unions are starting to change rates on both sides of the balance sheet. Whereas most credit unions typically leave their rates unchanged from month to month, we're starting to see more credit unions increasing than decreasing their auto loans and also.on money market accounts and certificates, credit unions are starting to increase the rates they're offering on those." [email protected]