Bills discounted reveal the character of another source of income. They represent investments in another high-class security. A few bills may be discounted directly on behalf of customers, but the bulk are bills re-discounted from the discount houses. Bill brokers discount bills at a certain price and the banks re-discount them at a lower price, and both, therefore, make a good aggregate profit out of the business. Bill brokers are practically the middlemen between merchants and the banks. These bills of discount being an investment and a sound security are thereby liquefied into ordinary currency and ordinary capital, capital which the merchant is able to use in the ordinary course of his business, while the nation at large benefits from the increased capital employed and the greater production and consumption that are the immediate fruits of it. The largest item on the asset side is the composite one of “loans, advances, other accounts and securities.” These include customers’ overdrafts and advances to customers on all kinds of security and estate, and may, perhaps, be regarded as the least liquid or the least readily realizable assets a bank has. In this item are its chief risks, and, perhaps, the soundness of banking is best judged by the size of this account. The larger the size the greater, presumably, are the risks; the smaller the size the less are the risks. But the aggregate forms a portion of the wealth of the community. A customer gives some kind of security when he overdraws his account. But all this composite wealth, of whatever class its component elements may be, is, by the machinery of the bank, converted into currency. These loans amount to nearly half the liabilities on deposit and current accounts, therefore additional currency to this amount can be placed in circulation. If no banks lent on such wealth there would be less potential capital in circulation; the capital would be as stationary and as unfruitful as hoarded coin. While, therefore, the bank owes this sum to the borrowers, giving them power to draw cheques against it or to take out the whole sum in cash, the borrowers owe the money to the bank; for the loans interest has, of course, to be paid according to the class of security lodged. This interest is one of the chief sources of a bank’s income. The liabilities of customers for acceptances has been explained. They offset the item on the liability side. They may be regarded as a moderate source of a bank’s income, and this class of business has to be done with great care. As for the bank’s premises, this is its own property in which it must do its business, and it is self-explanatory.