“Not Easy To Live Within Means”

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29913, 29 August 1962, Page 12

“Not Easy To Live Within Means”

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 28. New Zealanders would not find it easy to live within their means during the 1960’5. Economists, analysing the last decade in New Zealand, and looking forward to the next, did not like what they saw, Professor A. J. Danks, professor of economics at Canterbury University, told the New Zealand branch of the Bankers’ Institute of Australasia today.

Members of the staffs of Banks which filled a theatre in Wellington tonight listened with interest to the lecture on the role of banking in the community. “The prospect before us is not promising,” Professor Danks said. “Our austerity, which is not new but perhaps only newly being realised, creates a setting for the operation of monetary and banking policy which will certainly exercise all the skills the profession of banking can apply in the years ahead. “Are there any reasonable means which can be suggested to strengthen the part banks play in regulation of the economy ? “It may be suggested that a considerable liberalising of

bank interest rates would be helpful. “Credit restrictions must continue and indeed operate with greater rigour than has been the case. This is a source of great difficulty to trading banks which must actually do the unpleasant cutting back in detail." Professor Danks said the time might be ripe to consider new avenues for banking business now the capital market was unrestricted. A strengthening of the entire situation could follow the association of banks with finance companies by way of share holding or by other means, he said. He said he was impressed with developments overseas which had brought banking into closer touch with the public. “There is surely a case for a new look at banking operations.” he said.