NEW HIGH RECORD

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 23, 27 January 1940, Page 13

NEW HIGH RECORD

BRITISH DEPOSITS

FIVE LEADING BANKS

ATTRIBUTED TO WAR

(British Official Wirelfcss.)

(Received January 27, 10.40 a.m.) RUGBY,, January 26. A big expansion, in deposits to a new high record and a sweeping increase in money market assets are leading features of the 1939 balancesheets of the five leading banks, the last of which was issued yesterday. The'total deposits for the five banks are £2,094,100,000, compared with £1,950,100,000 at the end of 1938 and with the previous peak figure of £2,030,100,000 for 1937. The increase on the year thus amounts to £144,000,000,.0r 7.4 per cent., which is /the largest increase in any one year since 1932, the year in which the cheap money drive reversed the acute deflation of 1931-

Very' high deposit levels were reached during the'"- severe' inflation which immediately followed the last war, but although comparison -with that period is complicated by subsequent bank amalgamations,, it is probable that the present figure surpasses the peak of the 1919-20 inflation. Each of the''five banks participated in the expansion. The "Financial News" says that this sweeping rise is attributable to the war, for in the first half of the year the trend of deposits was steadily downwards in consequence of the efflux of foreign balances from London. Compared with their position at the end of June, indeed, the deposits of the big five banks show a rise of no less than £157,000,000, and the increase over nine months from March is greater still.