TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23026, 2 May 1938, Page 8

TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS

A reminder of the part played in the encouragement of thrift by the trustee savings banks is given by reports of the annual' meetings of several of them. The three available, Auckland, Dunedin and New Plymouth, all have the same tale to tell, greater totals of accounts, higher sums to the credit of depositors, and increased financial strengtn in the institutions themselves. There are five of these banks. The Auckland Savings Bank, the oldest of them, stands out from the rest by magnitudo in all departments. To compare it with the Dunedin institution, the next in size, shows the measure of its predominance. At March 31 last the amount to the credit of depositors in Auckland was £8,602,200. The corresponding figure in Dunedin was £2,431,300. The Auckland Savings Bank has more depositors aiad does more business than the other four combined. However, as the records regularly show, all of them perform a very useful function, receiving the savings of thrifty people, investing them judiciously and regularly contributing to worthy causes out of the profit the business 1 yields. Strictly regulated as to the amount on which interest may be paid, and the rate of interest itself, they continue, nevertheless, to attract depositors in growing numbers. The public resorts to them with a sense of absolute security, and with the certain knowledge that savings are in as conveniently liquid a form as they conceivably could be. In these days of the onward march of State institutions, there is something refreshing in contemplating the unchecked advance of these privately directed trustee savings banks.