A. Yes; in some respects.
Q. What is the difference?
A. The Société Générale, Crédit Lyonnais, etc., receive deposits from the public; they invest these deposits and try to make the most of them, paying a small rate of interest on them; they also loan money on commercial paper which can be rediscounted at the Bank of France. Here we are more a business bank; we do not care for deposits from the public; we work with our own money, with the money which is the capital of the bank, and we are occasionally assisted by the capital of the directors, the people who sit around this table, who are all rich people and some of them bankers. As a rule we do not receive deposits from the public.
Q. But you do receive some deposits?
A. We receive the deposits of big companies which we have created or promoted or whose stocks we have issued—they are our customers—but we do not receive deposits of small accounts from the public.
Q. What is your capital?
A. 75,000,000 francs.
Q. You have current accounts—190,000,000 francs?
A. They are current accounts, from manufacturing concerns, railway companies, big organisations of any kind.