At the regular weekly auction of new bills, the less than expected foreign central bank purchases in recent days helped raise the rate of the new three-month issue to 5.44 percent, from 5.23 percent a week ago.

He bought his first hotel instead, the 40-room Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas, in 1919, when a bank purchase fell through.

And he argued that there were factors other than Federal regulation behind the heavy bank purchases of Treasury obligations in preference to making business loans.

Mr. Fiechter said that he was more concerned about bank purchases of mutual institutions than about mutuals that make conversions.

Over the last year, central bank purchases of bills have helped to keep interest rates on those short-term issues abnormally low relative to long-term bonds.

The Government's foreign-currency reserves, for example, fell to a four-year low in March of $10.8 billion, partly because of central bank purchases of rubles to prevent the Russian currency from falling too steeply.

The Office of Thrift Supervision imposed a moratorium on Jan. 31 on bank purchases of most mutual institutions, and lengthened its review process for mutual institutions seeking permission to issue stock.

He followed up his courtroom victories by helping to put together complex bank purchases in Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia and New England.

The shortfall was made up by $34 billion of "official capital inflows" - that is, central bank purchases of dollars in the foreign exchange markets.

He said that the decision to raise rates today was consistent with the central bank purchases of euros on Sept. 22 and that the European bank would continue to closely monitor the currency's value and act "as appropriate."