NEW WAY TO PAY BILLS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXII, Issue LXII, 22 January 1912, Page 2

NEW WAY TO PAY BILLS

WOMEN TOO BUSY TO SIGN CHEQUES.,

A novel remedy for the chronic complaint of tradespeople that the "richest customers will not pay their bills" has just- been invented by ;ihe Fifth Avenue Bank of New York, which has among its depositors more, wealthy women than any other, metropolitan bank. "If you are too busy with your home arid social duties to sign cheques every month in settlement of bills, send the bills to us and we will attend to them,'.' is /the kindly message addressed tQ its fashionable clients by the president of the bank.

■ The message has" been received with a sigh of relief by harassed hostesses, who at the beginning of another social season, find the duties of preparing and signing cheques "too bothersome.'' Like many other New York banks, the h'litu Avenue establishment caters -or the comfort of women depositors in truly magnificent style. it provides them, witn luxuriously furnished rooms, where they can meet iriends, write letters, and go over accounts. "We want our women depositors," the bank, explains, "to let us help them whenever they get into dilficulties over their accounts or balances. If their cheque-books oecoine confused" ■we assign a special clerk to reconcile the accounts. We thus relieve the ladies of all figuring, and try to make banking as easy as possible."

The new departure involves the appointment of a special staff of clerks, who at the beginning of each month visit the customers and collect all outstanding bills whick, they carry to the bank for examination and settlement. The customer may then call at the bank a day or two later and affix her signature to numerous cheques, or if she has no time to do that, a clerk, will call- at her mansion and receive her cheque for the total, amount disbursed. The new scheme is designed not only for the comfort of depositors, but to save tradespeople the terrible predicament which recently overtook a millinery firm which filed a petition of Bankruptcy on the ground that its fashionable clients were too lazy to pay their bills.