* * * * *
}Von der Partei auszufüllen.
* * * * *
[1] Voucher.
[2] Acknowledgement of receipt of ... fl.... kr. sent to ...
[3] Acknowledgement of a payment of ... fl.... kr. l. e fl.... to the
cheque-account N^o ... of the Post Office Savings Bank.
[4] Holder of the current-account.
[5] Signature of the post office official.
[6] Acknowledgement of a deposit ... fl.... kr. made by ... to the
cheque account N^o ... of the Post Office Savings Bank.
[7] Post Office stamp.
[8] This acknowledgement of deposit is to be detached and to be sent
with the daily account to the Post Office Savings Bank.]
[Illustration:
Space for notifications sent to the holder of the current
account (affix a postage stamps of 2 kr.).
* * * * *
By means of this acknowledgement of receipt, a payment to the cheque
account designated on the other side may be made in every post office
(receiving office).
The acknowledgement of receipt and the acknowledgement of deposit,
properly filled up are to be presented with the sum in question to the
post office official. This official certifies the receipt of the sum
on the acknowledgement of receipt and returns it to the payer, whilst
he detaches the acknowledgement of deposit and sends it to the Post
Office Savings Bank. The Savings Bank informs the holder of the account
both by extract from the current-account and by the acknowledgement of
deposit, that the sum has been received.
Acknowledgements of receipt or deposit on which are found erasures,
obliterations or alterations of any kind, either in the printed text
or the written sum are not accepted by the post offices. Similarly
acknowledgements of receipt or of deposit which are very dirty or much
torn are refused.]
Deposits can be made by the intermediary of rural postmen to the extent
of 500 florins. In this case the receipt and deposit certificates must
be remitted to them with the sum; a provisional receipt is given which
is replaced at the next round by the official receipt of the district
post-office.
It will be interesting to show the importance to which this mode of
arranging deposits has now attained.
There is at the Central Office at Vienna a printing office which
permanently employs 16 workmen, exclusively engaged in printing cheques
and certificates of receipts and deposits. Six million of the latter
kind of certificates are now annually printed and the number of them
printed since the setting up of this system in 1883 amounts to 107
millions. An office for the verification and control of the printed
matter is connected with this workshop. As to the amount of payments
made through these certificates to the accounts of holders the 12^{th}
Report enables us to give the statistics.
At the opening of the year 1883 the sums paid into the funds of the
account holders, by means of the _Empfang erlag schein_ amounted to
322,284 florins.
They rose successively:
In 1884 to 43,748,349 florins.
» 1885 » 217,109,144 »
» 1886 » 361,466,434 »
» 1887 » 442,138,414 »
» 1888 » 446,874,084 »
» 1889 » 517,734,775 »
» 1890 » 592,089,250 »
» 1891 » 663,221,494 »
» 1892 » 731,325,411 »
» 1893 » 811,318,663 »
» 1894 » 889,793,808 »
» 1895 » 969,479,217 »
The annual growth has been during the later years about 70 to 80
millions of florins. It moves at a regular pace.
I have shown by the example above how by aid of the _empfang erlag
scheine_, the trader can by means of his responsible agent, the Savings
Bank, receive at once the amounts of his invoices, without the money
passing through his own hands. Numerous other applications of the
system are before us: commercial travellers can deposit to the account
of their employers, the sums they have collected in their rounds; they
can even add at the back of the certificate such helpful notes as they
think necessary; the commercial firm which employs them being regularly
and immediately informed of payments by account extracts and the
certificates of deposit being successively forwarded to the firm by the
Central Office at Vienna.
Associations of every kind having accounts at the Savings Bank can by
the same means gather subscriptions from the members: it is enough to
send their members _certificates of receipt and deposit_; each one
makes his payment at the neighbouring post office; the associations
receiving, as the merchants, extracts of their accounts.
Assurance societies can in like manner, effect the payment of their
insurers' premiums without any formality beyond that of sending
to these insurers the _empfang erlag scheine_. And in like manner
subscriptions to journals and all kinds of periodical payments can be
received.
_Secondly._
Post Office orders issued to the benefit of any person affiliated to
the cheque-service can, at his request be placed to the credit of his
account. He gives to this end, on forms required by the regulations,
an authorisation at his district post office. On its side the Central
Office of the Savings Bank puts itself in relation with the post
office. Ingenious combinations which are indicated in the instructions
reproduced in the appendix to this paper, cause the order to be
transmitted to the Money Order Office of the Viennese Post Office,
which in paying the amount to the Central Office of the Savings Bank
will at the game time inform of this transmission, the person in whose
favour the order is made out.
The Post Office Orders only take a very secondary position in the
accounts of the _cheque_ and _clearing_ service.
In 1884 their amount rose to 851,514 florins
» 1885 to 6,399,576 »
» 1886 » 14,197,234 »
» 1887 » 17,702,424 »
» 1888 » 17,853,284 »
» 1889 » 18,967,659 »
» 1890 » 22,349,594 »
» 1891 » 25,614,771 »
» 1892 » 26,271,893 »
» 1893 » 27,230,128 »
» 1894 » 28,252,117 »
» 1895 » 29,241,933 »
It is stated that the progressive movement is at once slower and more
regular since 1891, than it was previously.
_Thirdly._
The Postal Savings Bank receives in like manner for the benefit of
holders of cheque-books, dividend warrants due from the Austrian public
funds. It records the amount of them to the credit of the holder's
account and receives a fee of 1 kreutzer a piece.
It is the least important of the agencies which feed the credit of the
adherents of the system.
In 1884 the amount received was 3,310 florins
» 1885 44,056 »
» 1886 114,684 »
» 1887 134,588 »
» 1888 147,833 »
» 1889 131,944 »
» 1890 148,104 »
» 1891 167,199 »
» 1892 165,139 »
» 1893 176,524 »
» 1894 223,757 »
» 1895 254,497 »
_Fourthly._
The amount of claims to debts and bills rendered payable at the post
office can in like manner be placed to the credit of the adherent to
the cheque and clearing service in favour of whom these bills have been
drawn.
The importance of this agency is more considerable, but its progressive
development is said to move at an irregular rate.
Introduced in 1886, it was absolutely insignificant during the first
two years.
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.
[Illustration: FIGURE II.
Preis[1] 5 kr. Steuer-Einzahlungs-Schein, Preis 5 kr.
_N^o 1_
[2]Empfang-Schein
über eine Einlage von .. fl. .. kr., d. i.
fl. ____________________
____________________
auf das Postsparcassen-Check-Conto Nr. 809,990
des
Städtischen Central-Steueramtes
in Wien
(I. Rathhaus).
* * * * *
Post-Stempel:
[3]Unterschrift
des Postbeamten;
D.S. Nr. 120 (1.) ex 96.
* * * * *