A. Yes. We are especially a discount bank and our customers are mostly commercial people engaged in commerce and industry, so that our principal business in our branch offices consists in discounting commercial paper, in making advances against securities, goods, or warehouse receipts, or sometimes giving blank credits to our customers for commercial requirements.
Q. Have you stock in other banks which you control?
A. We are interested in the Banque de l'Indo Chine, which is an issue bank in the French colonies, but we do not control it; we hold a certain amount of shares.
Q. Are there any other banks which you control?
A. No.
Q. You have not been in the habit of buying up other banks?
A. No. The system here is to establish agencies of our own; the Germans, on the contrary, control other banks in order to arrive at the same result, viz., to get as much influence as possible throughout the country. We try to come to the same result by establishing our own agencies.
Q. Is that true of the Crédit Lyonnais?
A. The Crédit Lyonnais and the Société Générale have the same system.
Q. Is it usual for large banks in Paris to confine their underwriting operations to bond syndicates?