Part 4

1886 17,916 florins 1887 23,370 » 1888 1,013,478 » 1889 1,072,812 » 1890 1,511,822 » 1891 2,303,012 » 1892 2,740,125 » 1893 2,623,893 » 1894 3,001,165 » 1895 4,301,265 »

_Fifthly._

When the bearer of a cheque book is at the same time an adherent to the _clearing_ circulation, the amount of the cheques issued in his favour is carried to the credit of his account by the Postal Savings Bank, unless on these cheques is expressly noted: _Outside the clearing circulation_.

The amount of this service, after that of the _empfang erlag scheine_, is the most important element in the formation of the accounts' credit. It has nearly quintupled in the last ten years, moving forward, since 1886, at a steady rate, a proof, as the whole of the facts otherwise witness, of the progressive penetration of the system into the national economy.

At the opening of the institution of _clearing verkehr_, in the second fortnight in 1884, the amount of the sums carried to the _clearing_ account was:

1884 1,620,102 florins 1885 40,271,880 » 1886 102,185,786 » 1887 150,479,085 » 1888 177,846,958 » 1889 216,683,156 » 1890 264,262,296 » 1891 310,141,924 » 1892 360,498,168 » 1893 414,342,892 » 1894 445,378,270 » 1895 482,031,950 »

The last and assuredly the most ingenious of the application of the system is being made at this very time in the payment of taxes.

The _certificate of the payment of taxes (steuer Einzahlungs-schein)_ is nothing but a special form of _empfang erlag schein_; the Savings Bank proceeds experimentally by the trial of this mode of collecting the taxes in the province of Lower Austria.

The document, which costs 5 kreutzers, is divided into three parts: the _Empfang schein_, the _Erlag schein_, the _Treasury acknowledgement: Amtliche bestätigung_ (confirmation and official attestation). (Fig. II.)

The tax payer pays at the Post Office the amount of his tax which must be paid to the account of the central administration of taxes at Vienna; the document bears the account number of this Receipt Office of Taxation. The attestation of this payment of the tax-payer is signed by the postal employé and bears the stamp of his post office.

The remainder of the document is detached from the tax receipt and presents at first the _erlag schein_; it is the authentication of the deposit paid to the cashier of the administration of finances and which is sent by an employé of the Central Post Office at Vienna. It bears the name, the profession, the address of the tax-payer, the amount of the payment made by him, and shows what is the nature of the taxes received and the number of the account at the ministry of finances.

The other part of the document is the attestation by the ministry of finances itself of the payment made to its account; this _amtliche bestätigung_ will be detached and sent to the tax-payer: he will thus possess in the end a double authentication. It may be easily imagined how a tax-payer who is an adherent of the clearing service can pay his tax by a simple transfer of accounts, the ministry of finances having itself an account open at the Savings Bank.

If the various modes which concur to the formation of the property of the account holders in the Central Office at Vienna are considered as a whole the total amount of deposits has successively been:

In 1883 322,284 florins » 1884 46,223,529 » » 1885 263,853,687 » » 1886 478,190,612 » » 1887 610,477,881 » » 1888 643,735,637 » » 1889 754,590,345 » » 1890 880,361,067 » » 1891 1,001,448,400 » » 1892 1,121,000,736 » » 1893 1,255,692,098 » » 1894 1,366,649,116 » » 1895 1,485,308,862 »

In fixing the proportional relations per cent of all the statistical data here brought together we see that the factors which concur to form the credit of the double service of cheques and of clearing, the payments made by way of _empfang erlag schein_ represent in 1895, 65%, and the transfers by writing about 35%, while the total amount of the banking of post office orders, of interest in the public funds and of bills does not come to more than 3% of the whole.

The second class of operations of the cheque and clearing service of the Austrian Postal Savings Bank embraces the different modes of disposing of the property of the depositors who share in the service. The cheque is in a general way the instrument to which they recur under its two fundamental forms of cheques of payment and cheques of clearing, according as the amount is to be paid in cash or to be transferred to the account of another participant in the clearing service. The cheque books remitted to holders serve the double purpose; it has not been found necessary to print distinct documents, nor even to give to these two classes of cheques different colours.

Cheque books containing fifty pieces are remitted to participants by the Central Office at the charge of 1 florin 50 kreutzers; this sum means 50 kreutzers, expense of paper and printing and 1 florin stamp duty. They are printed on the premises of the Central Office as are the attestations of receipts and deposits. About 2,500,000 of them are now annually reproduced and more than 23,000,000 of cheques have been issued since the official presses were first set up at Vienna. They are prepared either in German, or in any other language spoken in the Empire. Before sending them to the holders of an account the Office prints on each of these vouchers the number of the account for which they are to be used, as well as the name and address of the holder. (Fig. III.)

Expressed in ordinary terms, the cheque states, that the Savings Bank will pay, on the voucher being forwarded, the sum of which the amount in florins has been written out in full. It bears the signature of the person drawing it. To avoid frauds in the statement of the sums to be paid, the Savings Bank has adopted moreover an arrangement so ingenious and sure that up to the present time no fraud has been noted.

The cheque bears to the right four series of figures going from 1 to 9. The first set corresponds to thousands, the second to hundreds, the third to tens, the fourth to units; the four series united together can express the sum of 9,999 florins, beyond which no cheque can be drawn, so that if this part of the document is left intact, the amount of the cheque will be 9,999 florins, provided always that the written statement agrees with the series of figures. If a lower figure is stated, then the number of the thousands, hundreds, tens exceeding the amount desired must be cut off with a pair of scissors. Suppose for example the cheque is to be for 782 florins; the column of the thousands is to be cut off, figures 8 and 9 in the columns of the hundreds, the last figure in that of the tens and the last seven in the column of units. It is evident that by this ingenious method of control, it will never be possible to raise the amount of the cheque; it will be of no use to alter the written statement of the amount in order to augment it, for it will never be possible to make a corresponding alteration in the arrangement of the figures to the right; by this process of cutting off, the cheque can only be reduced in value but never augmented. And if the agreement between the written figures and the combination of the figures resulting from this way of cutting them out is not perfectly exact, the Central Office at Vienna rejects the voucher as possibly fraudulent, at any rate erroneous.

_Firstly._ (_Cassa-checks._)

The cheque (of payment) can be payable to bearer at the Postal Savings Bank at Vienna. In this case it is delivered to the person who ought to receive the amount without the drawer having to transmit it to him. This party can either bank it himself immediately at the Post Office Bank at Vienna, or put it in circulation: this circulation is authorised for fourteen days, but the voucher cannot carry any endorsement. The cheque will be paid by the Office up to the time that the credit account of the drawer is sufficient to meet it.

If the cheque has been delivered to a person affiliated to the postal-service of cheques and clearing, he can have the amount put to his credit instead of receiving it in cash.

_Secondly._ (_Zahlungsanweisungen des postsparcassen-Amtes._)

The customer of the Postal Savings Bank has the right to cause the amount of the cheque to be paid into the hands of a particular person in any one of the Post Offices; in this case he writes on the back of the cheque the address of the person for whom he intends it.

This cheque will be sent by him to the Central Office at Vienna. There are special envelopes for the transmission of these advices which are sold by the Office to the possessors of cheque books. The Central Office will immediately transmit to the person designated an assignment of payment and the cheque will be paid to him on his returning this assignment, signed by him as a receipt. He will detach from it, in order to preserve it, a portion on which is noted the amount of the sum he has received, who the holder of the account is, the said portion bearing also the stamp of the Postal Office at Vienna.

A notice to the post office where it is payable will have been sent at the same time, giving authority to pay the cheque. (Fig. IV.)

Everyday 4,000 to 5,000 of these authorisations to pay cheques are issued. Ladies write out these authorisations by means of type-writing machines: their fingers work the machine with astounding rapidity. According to the data given me each of them prints every day 400 to 500 assignments of payment to the persons designated and authorisations to the post-offices to pay; and the hours of work averaging seven, they write about one a minute.

_Thirdly. (Postanweisungen.)_

The cheque can be drawn in favour of a person living in Hungary or a foreign country. It is enough that on the back is noted:--«for the issue of a post office order in favour of N ...», and that it is signed. The Central Office at Vienna will send immediately a post office order of corresponding import. The telegraphic order can even be used.

Statistics distinguish these three categories of cheques and enable us to follow their movement.

Payments effected

By cheques By cheques to particular persons By foreign payable to bearer paid at the Post Post Office (Cassa checks)[I] Offices[J] Orders[K]

1884 13,639,555 25,791,497 83,834 1885 78,375,622 132,053,520 777,914 1886 141,052,319 220,198,781 1,420,668 1887 178,365,871 278,559,689 1,583,098 1888 180,295,982 280,241,673 1,705,948 1889 223,060,247 303,720,753 2,008,593 1890 271,660,264 335,293,896 2,469,268 1891 318,239,728 361,727,429 2,611,044 1892 347,410,842 398,456,797 2,558,398 1893 386,027,972 437,492,243 2,590,614 1894 433,377,459 472,345,574 3,028,639 1895 463,540,198 524,212,798 3,781,586

It will be seen that in the last ten years the movement of the cheques payable to bearer has been more rapid than that of cheques paid at the post offices; the amount of the former has more than tripled.

_Fourthly._

The possessors of cheque books can cause purchases to be made by the Post Office in the public funds up to the amount of their account. The order ought to be explained by the transmission of a cheque of a value corresponding to that of the stocks to be bought. The rights acquired by the Post Office will either be sent on to the purchaser of the stocks, or at his request kept by the Office and under its guarantee. The Office banks the dividend warrants on their payments and places them to the credit of its client unless he requires them to be sent to him or the money remitted.

The importance of these payments is not considerable as is seen by the following figures:

1884 99,942 florins. 1885 374,697 " 1886 445,338 " 1887 844,978 " 1888 887,037 " 1889 955,019 " 1890 1,274,607 " 1891 1,091,839 " 1892 1,149,872 " 1893 1,685,791 " 1894 1,697,270 " 1895 1,865,919 "

_Fifthly._

The Postal Savings Bank pays in the same way on account of the adherents of the cheque and clearing service, bills, signed bonds, accounts admitted and approved. Bills of exchange are settled at the Postal Office at Vienna. In order to realize their payment, the holder of an account draws a cheque for the amount of the bill and writes on the back: _for payment of the bill herein refered to_. He indicates the date of its falling due and puts his signature below these remarks. This cheque is sent to the Postal Office at Vienna before the bill falls due. It can be addressed also to the possessor of the bill, who will present it at the date it is due to the Postal pay Office with at the same time his claim. If the possessor of the bill is himself affiliated to the cheque service he can have the bill put to the credit of his account.

The degree of importance of this branch is indicated by the following figures:

1885 406,451 florins 1886 1,522,404 " 1887 1,877,602 " 1888 3,053,419 " 1889 2,823,845 " 1890 3,436,795 " 1891 4,564,179 " 1892 6,183,954 " 1893 7,343,438 " 1894 7,917,723 " 1895 8,818,997 "

From this it will be seen that during the last five years the movement has so accelerated that the amount has in the interval nearly doubled.

_Sixthly._

Here the system presents to us its highest degree of interest: the possessors of account books, adherents of the clearing service, can discharge their debts one to the other by the transfer of accounts. It is sufficient to write at the back of the cheque: to be carried to the credit of account N^o ..., with the name of the holder of the account and his address. In this case the amount of the cheque is placed to the debit of the person who issued it and to the credit of the person in whose favour it is drawn.

The two holders of accounts at the Savings Bank are immediately informed of this transfer by the sending of the extract of their accounts.

The cheques which have this destination are properly speaking clearing cheques not intended to be paid in species; but it may happen that a cheque destined for a member, adherent to the clearing service has in an exceptional case to be paid in money; the person who has issued it will in that case have to make a note at the back of the document: _Outside the clearing circulation_.

The statistics show the growing importance of _clearing cheques_.

1884 1,620,102 florins 1885 40,271,880 " 1886 102,185,786 " 1887 150,479,085 " 1888 177,846,958 " 1889 216,683,156 " 1890 264,262,296 " 1891 310,141,924 " 1892 360,498,168 " 1893 414,342,892 " 1894 445,378,270 " 1895 482,031,950 "

It will be seen that in the last ten years, the amount has nearly quintupled. The pace of the movement is here more rapid than in cheques payable in cash.

The proportional relations of all the modes of disposing of the credit of the adherents of the cheques and _clearing_ service show that in 1895 on a total of liquidations or payments of 1,484,251,488 florins, 32% were occasioned by transfers of accounts, 32% by cheques to bearer (_cassa-checks_), 35% by cheques to appointed persons, and the remainder by the other modes indicated.

The progress of the figures taken all round is as follows:

1883 213,239 florins 1884 41,234,429 " 1885 252,260,083 " 1886 466,807,297 " 1887 611,693,909 " 1888 643,718,457 " 1889 750,898,892 " 1890 877,975,829 " 1891 998,376,144 " 1892 1,116,258,031 " 1893 1,249,482,460 " 1894 1,363,744,935 " 1895 1,484,251,448 "