SAVINGS BANK

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30737, 29 April 1965, Page 18

SAVINGS BANK

Hornby Branch Opened

The reason the Government placed restrictions on the operations of trustees savings banks was that the Government was the guarantor of deposits made by the public in the savings banks, said the Minister of Transport and member of Parliament for Selwyn (Mr McAlpine) yesterday. He was officially opening the new Hornby branch of the Canterbury Savings Bank. He also unveiled a memorial plaque inside the building. Also present was the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Nordmeyer) and the bank's president (Mr M. J. Russell). Mr McAlpine said that if the Government was to be guarantor it must restrict the operations of the trustees savings banks to some extent, to ensure that no trustees savings bank failed. Mr McAlpine said that in the small savings field, in the last 10 years, the trustees savings banks had increased their deposits from £43 million to £lO9 million.

The total small savings, including the post office savings bank, in the same period, increased 60 per cent. But trustees savings banks increased 153 per cent, he said.

This, said Mr McAlpine, showed the value to the local communities of the trustees savings bank system. Mr Russell said that the Hornby branch might have been opened a long time ago, but for the fact that in busy Hornby it was very, very difficult to get premises. Some new project was opened in Hornby almost every week. The Canterbury Savings Bank which was established two years and nine months ago, he said, now had 30,000 depositors; and funds just short of £8 million. Mr Russell said that the bank had more than £5 J million invested in Government stock: nearly £2 million on first mortgage and £250,000 in local body loans. “We are very pleased to see ourselves at Hornby and we hope we . will be as successful as all the others round-about,” he said.