BANKING

Judge Reduces Keating’s Bail: Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito, who is presiding over the criminal securities fraud trial of Charles H. Keating Jr., has reduced the former Lincoln Savings & Loan owner’s bail to $100,000 from $300,000 and substituted equity in real estate for a bond. Ito agreed with Keating’s defense lawyer, Stephen C. Neal, that Keating did not pose a threat to flee further prosecution and that Keating could not afford to renew the bail bond for another year. The current bond, which expires today, cost $30,000. Equity in the home of Maureen and Thomas D. Mulhern, one of Keating’s daughters and sons-in-law, was used in place of the bond.