Savings bank

“ The savings-bank has strengthened in a singular degree the love of order, industry, and temperance. How many [pg 32] cheerful hopes and anticipations are connected with savings! It has been ascertained, both in England and France, that since the establishment of savings-banks in those countries, no criminal has ever been found to have been a member of one. How true a benefactor to his country has the young merchant Hagedom proved himself to be! May he live long to direct the savings-bank of his native town of Libau! ”

“ It is eminently right and proper that the State, through its bank commissioners or otherwise, should so far supervise the operations of savings banks as to see that they perform their part of their contract with depositors.
Safety, at best, is relative only; there is no absolute safety for the twenty-dollar piece a man has in his pocket, whether he is on the street, at his office, or by his own fireside. We are reminded that 'riches take to themselves wings' and that 'thieves break through and steal.' No savings bank can keep money on hand or deposit it or loan it with absolute safety. ”

“ Nearly $2,000,000,000 is deposited in the savings banks of the United States. This large sum represents the savings of about 5,000,000 people. The primary idea of a savings bank and of the post-office and other forms of saving institutions in foreign countries is to encourage thrift among the masses of the people.
The older savings banks, especially those in the eastern States, have no capital stock. That is to say, they are mutual in their form of organisation. Their capital is the accumulated deposits of a large number of people. ”

“ A savings-bank account is another way of keeping savings. Savings banks will take money in very small sums and will pay a reasonable interest on it. This method of keeping savings has the advantage that the money can be drawn whenever it is needed, but the resulting disadvantage that the account may be small at the moment of sudden need. If it is possible, as it often is, to have both a life insurance and a savings-bank account, a household may feel well protected against calamity, and well provided against sudden wants. ”

“ A private bank, however, is an unincorporated bank.
Not all banking institutions incorporated by the States are state banks. Mutual savings banks, stock savings banks, and trust companies are also corporations organized under state laws or charters granted by state legislatures. The distinction between mutual savings banks and state banks is clear. Mutual savings banks do not have a capital stock and do not carry on a discount and deposit business—i. e., they do not discount commercial paper, and do not receive demand deposits payable on check. ”

“ In short, operation was made so expensive, that while a money order costs [365] the department in issue or payment but three-halfpence, every transaction in the savings bank, whether of deposit or withdrawal, costs sevenpence. [220]
The full evil of such increase in current expense will appear when it is considered what, under strictly economical management, these savings’ banks might become. Their chief avowed object is, and most assuredly should be, to give the largest justifiable encouragement to popular thrift ”

“ In my own judgment the highest function of the savings bank is to lead the workman back to the ownership of his tools, or since that is not literally possible, to a share in the ownership of the productive forces of society. ”

“ The advocates of a postal savings bank claimed that adequate savings facilities were not and could not be provided by private enterprise, because of the expense of conducting savings banks in small communities, and also in larger communities where the people were not yet educated to the saving habit ”

“ Savings banks having no capital are not included in that provision; nor are they included in the next succeeding clause, which imposes a duty of one-twelfth of one per cent. each month upon the average amount of circulation issued by any bank, association, corporation, company, or person, including as circulation, all certified checks, and all notes and other obligations calculated or intended to circulate or to be used as money. ”

“ The minister said that it was the plan of the bank to reduce the amount of prizes and to increase their number so that gradually the payment of a reasonable interest would be approached, as the people got accustomed to the idea of placing their funds in such an institution. The fact that this country, whose people are so frugal and parsimonious and where there is so much accumulated capital, should hitherto have been without savings banks appears remarkable to a stranger. ”

“ The deposits in these now amount to a thousand million dollars, and the number of depositors in the Northern and Middle States is about three millions. Objection has been raised in some quarters to the joint-stock type of savings bank, on the ground that its deposits must be loaned profitably for the payment of dividends, and that consequently greater risks are incurred. This risk is still greater where savings banks are permitted to do a commercial business, as the paper which they discount may prove inconvertible in a time of commercial depression or in a panic. ”

“ The savings bank affords them an opportunity and gives them an advantage which they would not otherwise have. It is a benefit first to those who have some surplus, but are unable to loan it to advantage; secondly to those who are in want of capital, but do not know where to find it.
A bank of deposit grows out of the necessities of commerce in a community where much business is transacted. All persons engaged in trade will find from time to time large or smaller accumulations of money in their hands which it is not safe without considerable expense, to keep by them. ”

“ The Postal Savings Bank, as it is organised and works, has not yet any kind of purpose of freeing circulation from its metallic basis, but like all other credit institutions, it contributes to this end by economising more and more the use of money; with extraordinary powers of expansion, it enables an ever increasing number of respectable persons, associations or bodies, to effect all their payments without the least risk, almost without loss of time and without having to keep any metallic money in their possession. ”

“ A mutual savings bank may be admitted to membership when it has surplus and undivided profits not less than the amount of capital required for the organization of a national bank in the same place. It must subscribe for Federal reserve bank stock in an amount equal to six-tenths of one per cent of its total deposit liabilities, such subscription to be adjusted semi-annually on the same basis. ”

“ 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 Savings Bank is under the direction of a committee of the principal people of the Island, most of them members of the States, and is on a safe foundation, the whole capital being vested in the public funds. When the name and occupation of a depositor is entered, he receives 3 per cent for his money. ”

“ The savings bank should only be the primary department in accumulating.
The moment a savings account has grown to a sufficient proportion, the prudent one will seek a larger field in order to reap the benefit of a more profitable and safer investment. ”

“ I believe a national savings bank, operating through commercial banks, stores, and employers all over the United States, making its investments through a small compact, very highly paid and very efficient and very stringently supervised board of executives in one city, supporting a vigorous, numerous, and far-flung selling organization, similar in many respects to the industrial life [Pg 16] insurance organizations, could undertake this work and, were it possible to act quickly enough, could keep the thrift movement going without losing the amazing momentum which it has now acquired. ”

“ There are savings-bank deposits and deposits in ordinary banks, running up into scores of billions and held by over a score of million of depositors. There are scores of billions of dollars in insurance contracts of various kinds, many of them running for long terms, such as the span of human lives. The widow whose husband twenty years ago insured his life for her benefit gets to-day only a little over one third of the purchasing power contemplated in the policy. ”

“ He took the shortest cut to the Bowery Savings Bank. This is one of the largest and most important savings banks in the city, and its deposits exceed twenty millions. It is a blessing to thousands of salaried men and women, mechanics and others, in providing them a safe place of deposit for their surplus money.
Paul entered the bank, and, going up to the proper clerk, subscribed the books of the bank, giving his age, and other particulars necessary to identification; and then, rather to the surprise of the bank officer, wrote out a deposit check for forty dollars. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When Richard returned the card, Mr. Cashier took up a neat little book, wrote Richard’s name on the cover and made a note inside the book, which said that Richard had one dollar in the bank. Then he gave him the book, together with a pretty nickel home-safe, such as savings banks keep for children who save pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and, sometimes, even dollars.
“This is a home-savings bank,” explained Mr. Cashier. “Your dollar which you handed through the window will grow in two ways. We will make it grow by paying you interest. You may make it grow by adding more money to it. ”

“ The same feeling of suspicion frequently prevents workmen depositing money in the ordinary savings bank. They do not like it to be known to their employers that they are saving money, being under the impression that it might lead to attempts to lower their wages. A working man in a town in Yorkshire, who had determined to make a deposit in the savings bank, of which his master was a director, went repeatedly to watch at the door of the bank before he could ascertain that his master was absent ”

“ There has grown up in this country a class of financial institutions which take a sort of middle ground between the commercial bank and the savings bank, so far as their service to the public is concerned. ”

“ By an act which came into force on the 1st of January 1895 building societies, duly incorporated, were enabled to deposit at any one time a sum not exceeding £300, and to buy government stock up to £500 through the savings bank. Savings Bank Finance.-The increase in the deposits lodged in the post office savings bank must be ascribed to a variety of causes. Numbers of trustee banks have been closed, and have transferred their accounts to the post office bank; greater facilities have been offered by the bank ”

“ He must also know his customer’s handwriting, so, should he pay a cheque or bill which turns out to be a forgery, he must bear the loss. If he neglects to carry out any instructions within the legitimate sphere of banking business, such as the payment of premiums on a life insurance or the purchase of shares, he may be called to account for any loss the customer may suffer through his carelessness.
The simplest bank in the country, and the most important to depositors of small means is the Post Office Savings Bank, about which we must now speak. ”

“ That amendment declares that savings banks shall be exempt from tax on so much of their deposits 'as they have invested in securities of the United States, and on two thousand dollars of savings deposits, and nothing in excess thereof, made in the name of and belonging to any one person.' 20 Stat. ”

“ In order to awaken and encourage a spirit of frugality in the men and to render their future more comfortable and independant, a Workman’s Savings Bank was instituted, with the following fundamental principles: Acceptance of the smallest deposit at any time ”