The Austrian terminology bristles with difficulties, the name of cheque verkehr is here given to the first of these services, circulation of payment cheques resulting in the end in the use of metallic money, and to the second service, the name of clearing verkehr, circulation of clearing cheques, which resolves itself, as far as the Savings Bank is concerned, into the transference from one account to another, in the substitution of one creditor for another.
The cheque service may exclusively be adhered to, or the cheque and clearing service.
For affiliation to the cheque service it is necessary to request the Office of the Postal Savings Bank in Vienna to open an account, to send a cheque book and a book of certificates of receipts and deposits, of which we are now about to speak. The cheque book costs 1 florin 50 kreutzers, the certificates of deposit 1 kreutzer a piece.
The Post Office can refuse the request without having to give any reason. If an account is opened to the grantee, he receives cheque books and certificates, but he is bound within a month to effect a deposit of 100 florins as security. Neither the law nor the regulations fix any maximum of deposit. The minimum of 100 florins will remain in the hands of the administration, without the person entitled to it being able to dispose of it as long as he has an account open in the Post Office. The adhesion to the clearing circulation is at once requested by the Post Office, of adherents to the cheque service.
The number of adherents to the cheque service is not identical with that of adherents to the service of clearing. For the thirteen years that these services have been instituted the first has always taken precedence of the second, but the divergence which exists between the two numbers is being reduced and the number of adherents to the clearing service tends to blend and will finally blend with the adherents to the cheque service.
The geographical distribution of those who have accounts in the two services is of much interest. In 1895, out of 28,363 adherents to the cheque service there were 27,820 in Austria, 353 in Hungary, and 190 abroad,—163 in the German Empire, 5 in England, 1 in France, 3 in Holland, 5 in Italy, 3 in Switzerland, 2 in Belgium—an interesting fact.
The twelfth report: Zwölfter Rechenschaftsbericht des postsparcassen Amtes, insists on the important number of Hungarian commercial firms, affiliated to the Austrian Bank, all of whom have an account open in the Post Office Savings Bank instituted in 1887 at Budapest; it announces the approaching inauguration of a direct and regular service of account-keeping between the two Banks, a service to which the traders in both countries attach great importance. It will mark a new phase in the evolution of the institution; and form as it were the preface to its internationalisation.
It is curious to note that out of 543 residing in Hungary and abroad who have cheque accounts, there are 434 who are affiliated to the Clearing at Vienna, that is 79.9%, a proportion very much larger than is seen in all those in the various Austrian provinces.
The number of those having accounts has successively been:
| In the cheque service | In the clearing service | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| In | 1883 | 167 | |
| » | 1884 | 2,520 | 1,283 |
| » | 1885 | 6,877 | 4,733 |
| » | 1886 | 10,553 | 7,274 |
| » | 1887 | 12,981 | 8,758 |
| » | 1888 | 14,296 | 9,836 |
| » | 1889 | 16,046 | 11,025 |
| » | 1890 | 17,808 | 12,200 |
| » | 1891 | 19,391 | 13,331 |
| » | 1892 | 21,365 | 14,955 |
| » | 1893 | 23,471 | 16,197 |
| » | 1894 | 25,834 | 18,250 |
| » | 1895 | 28,363 | 20,750 |