This list is the expression as it were, of a conscious agreement of wills on a more and more extended scale in a common work of reciprocity.
The all round figure which sums up for the service during 1895, the total amount of operations relating to the credit and debit of holders of accounts in the Postal Savings Bank of Vienna is 2,970,170,049 florins. It will be interesting to learn what have been the expenses which have arisen from such a vast amount of business.
The account of the financial administration of the service of cheques and clearing makes the administrative expenses 899,356 florins, that is three-hundredths of a florin, for every 100 florins of business[M]. The average business done for each possessor of a cheque book is 100,000 florins, and the average charges of the service per person have been about 30 florins.
Going back ten years it is seen that when in 1886 the amount reached 944,997,612 florins, the total expense was 620,247 florins, or six-hundredths of a florin for every 100 florins of business done. The operations averaged about 90,000 florins to each holder of a cheque book and the charges 44 florins each person. The law, in accordance with which the general expenses are relatively reduced by the increase in the figure of business done, receives here a fresh verification.
Such is the summary explanation of the organisation and working of the cheque and clearing system instituted thirteen years ago at the Postal Savings Bank of Vienna.
It is based on the centralisation at Vienna of the accounts of depositors holding cheque books and on the almost absolute perfectness of the regularity and precision with which all those interested are every time fully informed of their position of the Central Bank, and, in consequence, of the extent of the credit they have at their command. This institution implies the free adhesion under conditions fixed by law of all the depositors at the Savings Bank and the right of each to withdraw as he thinks proper. The institution therefore works on the ground of stipulated contract, but its elasticity is seen in the perpetually widening extension of its operations and its making way in every class of society and in every one of the professions.
Its realization under the international form, for we give this character to an agreement between the Savings Banks of Austria and Hungary, is only a question of time, and the new experiment will prepare the way for a new enlargement of the system.