Post Office Savings Bank

“ In some countries, there are more facilities for saving money in private institutions and public concerns; in others there are considerably less than in England. Still it is to be feared that the younger generation, especially in our large towns, do not save to any great extent. The temptations to spend are at every corner, and perhaps the best recommendation of the Post Office Savings Bank, in the eyes of the masses, is that withdrawals are easy. ”

“ The postal savings bank is not a bank, or a banking system, so much as it is an adjunct of the Government; for the fundamental idea is that through the post office the Government holds itself out as willing to accept the savings deposits of the people, invest them in its own securities and become absolutely [Pg 279] responsible for the safe return of the funds when called for, with a nominal rate of interest. All the leading countries of the world except Germany and Switzerland now operate the postal savings banks. ”

“ You cannot, in the Post Office Savings Bank, open an account from which, by means of cheques, you can draw money at any hour. It does not provide cheque books, and makes the withdrawal of money comparatively a slow process, for its leading idea is not to facilitate present business, but to provide for future need. ”

“ Sikes himself,—when predicting at the Social Science Association the success of the Post Office Savings Banks,—"Should the plan be carried out, it will soon be doing a glorious work. Wherever a Bank is opened and deposits received, self-reliance will to some extent be aroused, and, with many, a nobler life will be begun. They will gradually discern how ruthless an enemy is improvidence to working men; and how truly his friends are economy and forethought. Under their guidance, household purchases could be made on the most favourable terms—for cash ”

“ From such small beginnings a vast savings bank business has grown up. The sum standing to the credit of depositors in the Post Office Savings Bank in the Bristol postal area at the end of 1895, when the last account was published, was nearly £2,000,000, deposited by some 100,000 separate individuals. ”

“ The difficulties and perplexities of the British public on the subject of money are known to no person more fully than the Controller of the Post Office Savings Bank. He is sometimes tempted to wonder what are the benefits achieved by the Compulsory Education Acts. ”

“ In the order of advantages which post-office savings' banks offer the depositor, we would rank next to their unquestionable security their peculiar convenience for deposit and withdrawal. Twelve months ago, a person might be the length of an English county distant from a bank for savings. Under the present arrangement, few persons will be a dozen miles distant from a money-order office, whilst nine-tenths of the entire community will find the necessary accommodation at their very doors. ”

“ The Post Office Savings Bank has always the right to give notice to a participant to withdraw his Guarantee-deposit, with the result that from the day the participant receives the notice he can no longer dispose of the balance to his credit by way of cheques (§ 4 of the Law) . ”

“ The Post Office is always at hand in every village or town to receive small sums. Cheques are accepted for deposit, and it is found that many people use their accounts chiefly as a means by which they can dispose of crossed cheques received by them.
At the back of this huge undertaking is the credit of the nation: there is complete security for every depositor, and it is difficult to conceive of a run on the Savings Bank, although a very large number of the depositors are of that class which most readily succumbs to a panic. ”

“ How powerful would be the appeal to the public if he could follow the example of the Bedminster Down Penny Bank and advertise the Post Office Savings Bank with an effective poster such as the one on the opposite page.
To reach the heart of the people the appeal must be in the people's own idioms. ”

“ With persons who deposit their hard-earned savings in the Post-office Savings Bank, there is sometimes observed a disposition, not to be wondered at in their case, to use more than ordinary care in keeping their savings secret,—which care, however, does not always secure the aim which they have in view, but results in quite a different fashion. ”

“ All deposits in excess of the current needs of the Post Office Savings Bank are to be profitably invested.
Such profitable investments of the savings-deposits will be made by the purchase of the Austrian Consolidated Bonds bearing interest. ”

“ If you ever send in a withdrawal order to draw money out of the Post Office Savings Bank, and then find that you do not wish to take out the money because you have received some from some other source, be careful to always draw it out when you get your order, and, if you do not want to use it, pay it in again the following day. ”

“ He could not be more systematically robbed of his savings than he is at the present time. Nowhere beyond the limit of the Post Office Savings’ Bank is there security—not even in the gilt-edged respectability of Consols, which in the last ten years have fallen from 114 to under 82. ”

“ The Administration is however authorised, with power of countermand and under necessary precautions to permit sums up to 20 florins of which notice has been given to be immediately paid at one of the authorised receiving offices without waiting for the arrival of the foregoing assignment from the Post Office Savings Bank. ”

“ America possesses no Postal Savings Bank, no Postal Telegraph system (in many Western States it costs three francs to send a dozen words a hundred miles over the monopolist private wires) , there is no system of Parcel Post such as exists in England, and until recently there was no rural delivery. To see a long line of citizens, 241even in towns of five and six thousand inhabitants, waiting outside the post office for their morning mail, was as curious a sight for a European as could be imagined. ”