Economics Volume II: Modern Economic ProblemsFetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
General
Economics Volume II: Modern Economic Problems
Fetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
Economics
§ 6. #Typical mutual savings banks#. About one third of these banks
are on the mutual plan, having no capital stock (most of them in the
East) and these contain about four fifths of all the deposits.
The stock savings banks have individual deposits of over a billion
dollars, and have outstanding capital stock to the amount of about
$90,000,000 (about 9 per cent of their deposits). These stock savings
banks to a much greater extent than do the mutual banks transact also
a commercial business.
The banks on the mutual plan are therefore the most important, the
typical savings banks. The average rate of interest they paid
to depositors in 1914 was 3.86 per cent. About one half of their
resources are invested in loans, mostly to small borrowers on the
security of real estate, and most of the remainder consists of bonds
and other securities of the safer kinds.
Savings banks are subject to the supervision and inspection of the
banking departments in the several states, a fact that exerts a
salutary effect though not insuring absolutely against either mistaken
judgment or dishonesty on the part of the bank officials.[8]
Savings banks seek to keep invested as large a part as possible of
their assets, keeping only in ready cash enough to meet a possible
temporary excess of withdrawals over deposits. In contrast with the
policy of commercial banks with their demand deposits, the sound
policy for savings banks is to reserve the right to require notice of
intention to withdraw. The period of such notice varies from a
minimum of ten days to a maximum of about sixty days. In ordinary
circumstances it is not needful or usual for a bank to exercise this
right, but it is a needful safeguard in times of commercial crises.
This requirement of notice is greatly to the advantage of depositors
collectively and thus of the community as a whole. It is not an undue
limitation of the rights of the individual depositor. It is unfair
for the individual, in a period of financial stress, to seek his own
safety in a manner which is impossible for all, and thus to endanger
the interests of all.[9]
The mutual savings banks in 1914 had (on the average) but six tenths
of a cent of actual cash (and "checks and cash items") in their tills
for every dollar of deposits, but in addition they had for every
dollar of deposits four cents due on demand from state and national
(commercial) banks. In the aggregate these demand deposits amounted to
the large sum of $172,000,000, a large part of which bore a low rate
of interest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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