POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20011, 30 July 1928, Page 8

POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANK.

The fact that withdrawals from the Post Office Savings Bank during the last financial year exceeded deposits by the record amount of £2,973,931 —the previous highest figuro was £1,110,234 in 1921-22--has been known for some time. The excess was so great that it obviously could not be covered by the interest accruing to depositors' accounts. That has been confirmed by the departmental accounts, which show that the interest credited was £1,747,156, over £20,000 less than in the previous year, a contraction being in itself a novelty. In five of the six preceding years, there were excesses of withdrawals, but they were more than balanced by interest additions, so that the aggregate funds of the bank continued to increase, by £5,633,000 from 1921 to 1927, to £48,985,500. The latest account, however, shows a reduction to £47,758,726. Except Western Samoa, every postal district paid out a larger sum than it received in deposits, and, with one exception, the excess was greater than the interest due to depositors. Hamilton alone has the distinction of living within its income, so far as interest on savings bank deposits are concerned, for the excess of withdrawals was only £66,770, while the interest added was £83,114. The exceptional contraction of the bank's funds has been officially attributed largely to withdrawal of large commercial balances. There is no apparent evidence of this in the return, since the average withdrawal is given as £23 19s lOd, as against £24 12s 4d in the previous year, but since there vere 1,274,900 withdrawals, large individual amounts might not make much impression on the average. There is probably indirect evidence in the wide variation in the character of the transactions in the several districts. Thus, while the withdrawals as a whole exceeded deposits by nearly 11 per cent., the excess in Christchurch was about the average, it was only 9 per cent, in Auckland and 7 per cent, in Wellington. New Plymouth and Oamaru show 16 per cent, excess, Dunedin nearly 20 per cent, and Invercargill 21 per cent. If the favourable position in the Hamilton district is regarded as an indication of greater prosperity there than elsewhere in the Dominion, then the fact that the Auckland district had considerably below the average excess of withdrawals should be remembered in assessing the general condition of prosperity in the major part of the Auckland Province.