MONEY BY MAIL

Waikato Independent, Volume XL, Issue 3669, 17 February 1940, Page 7

MONEY BY MAIL

BUSY SECTION OF POST OFFICE CAREFUL CHECKING ~ * As a medium for the circulation of money, postal notes and moneyorders take no small place in New Zealand’s economic system. This method of transmitting cash to all parts of the Dominion and overseas has shown remarkable expansion since New Zealand emerged from the economic depression. The money-orders issued in New Zealand last year exceeded the 1933 total by £1,200,000. The great range of service which the postal-note and money-order system renders is shown by the fact that in a year the transactions total more than 4,500,000, representing cash exceeding £5,750,000. The accountancy associated with this busy section of the Post Office is on so large a scale that the department’s system of machine accountancy has to be used in the checks and audits. Much Work Entailed All the money-orders paid in New Zealand come to the machine accountancy section of the General Post Office, where a card is punched for each, detailing the office of origin, the amount and other information. There are 900 money-order offices each having its own distinctive number for the machine accountancy purposes, and many thousands of cards carrying all this information go to a sorting machine, to emerge in separate bundles each relating to a particular office and in numerical sequence. Then the punched cards go through the tabulating machines to secure a typed record of the detailed transactions and the total in respect of each office, which is important for audit purposes. One post office may issue 500 moneyorders payable in several hundred different places, but after they are paid all excepting those send abroad, come back to the General Post Office and its machine accountancy branch. Postal-notes after' payment also come back to the same point for numerical sorting of each denomination, so that they can be quickly referred to if necessity arises. 39 Different Postal Notes Postal notes are issued in 39 denominations, and it is possible to make up/ other totals by the addition of a few postage stamps. The magnitude of the postal note business is so great that this minor phase has involved the use in one year of nearly £14,000 worth of stamps. As the money-order system is world-wide, the financial division of the General Post Office has to make regular settlements with the British and foreign postal administrations, based on the balance of payments and receipts, and as New Zealand is, in economic phraseology, “a debtor country, the New Zealand Post Office generally has to remit rather than to receive.