POST-OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS.

We have already explained at some length the origin and ordinary working of these banks; the following résumé of the distinctive features of the new plan may therefore suffice:—

(a) Nearly all the money-order offices in the United Kingdom are now open each working-day for the receipt and payment of savings-bank accounts.
(b) Deposits of one shilling, or any number of shillings, will be received, provided the total amount of deposits in any one year does not exceed 30l., or the total amount standing in one name does not exceed, exclusive of interest, 150l.
(c) Each depositor, on making the first payment, must give every necessary particular regarding himself, and sign a declaration. He will then receive a book (gratis) in which all entries of payments and withdrawals will be regularly made by an officer of the Post-Office.
(d) Interest at the rate of 2l. 10s. per cent. is given on all money deposited.
(e) Secrecy is observed with respect to the names of depositors in post-office banks, and the amounts of their deposits.
(f) Depositors have direct Government security for the prompt repayment, with interest, of all their money.
(g) Married women may deposit money in these banks, and money so deposited will be paid to the depositor, unless her husband give notice of marriage, in writing, and claim payment of the deposits.
(h) Money may also be deposited by, or in behalf of, minors. Unlike some ordinary savings-bank, depositors over seven years of age are treated here as persons of full age, though minors under seven cannot withdraw, or have drawn, their deposits until they attain that age.
(i) Charitable societies and penny-banks may deposit their funds in the Post-Office banks, but a copy of their rules must, in the first instance, be sent to the Postmaster-General. Special aid is given to penny-banks established in connexion with those of the Post-Office.
(j) Friendly societies, duly certified by the Registrar of these societies, may also deposit their funds, without limitation or amount, under the same condition.
(k) A depositor in an old savings-bank may have his money transferred to the Post-Office banks with the greatest ease. He has only to apply to the trustees of the old savings-bank for a certificate of transfer (in the form prescribed by the Act of Parliament regulating the transactions of these banks, viz. 24 Vict. cap. 14), and he can then offer the certificate to the Post-Office bank, and it will be received as if it were a cheque. Of course he can draw out from one bank and pay into the other in the usual way, but the transfer certificate will save him both trouble and risk.
(l) A depositor in any one of the Post-Office savings-banks may continue his payments in any other bank at pleasure without notice or change of book. The same facilities of withdrawal, as we have previously shown, are also extended to him.
(m) Additional information may be obtained at any post-office, or by application to the Controller, Savings-Bank Department, General Post-Office, London. All applications of this kind, or any letters on the business of the savings-banks, as well as the replies thereto, pass and repass free of postage.