Readings in Money and Banking Part 57

Q. How many employes have you?

A. Including the country, something like 5,000.

Q. Have you a pension system for your employes?

A. Our clerks consent to a rebate of 5 per cent. on their salaries, and we duplicate this rebate by a voluntary contribution, in order to const.i.tute a pension fund; it amounts now to about 7,000,000 francs.

Q. If a new bank were to be organised here, would it be admitted as a member of the clearing house?

A. Certainly.

Q. You have no new banks except the Union Parisienne?

A. There is also the Banque Francaise, managed by M. Rouvier, who formerly was Premier.

BANQUE DE PARIS ET DES PAYS-BAS

INTERVIEW WITH M. MORET, MANAGER OF THE BANQUE DE PARIS ET DES PAYS-BAS[180]

Q. We a.s.sume that your business is in many respects quite unlike that of the other joint-stock banks?

A. Yes; in some respects.

Q. What is the difference?

A. The Societe Generale, Credit 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 a.s.sisted 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.

Q. You have a considerable foreign business?

A. We have connections all over the world, and very often we take an interest in business abroad.

Q. Do you operate more particularly in one part of the world than in another?

A. No; although we have only three branches--one in Brussels, one in Amsterdam, and one in Geneva.

Q. Do you endeavor to carry any special amount of cash at the Bank of France? Or are you indifferent as to the amount of balance you have there?

A. We always calculate what sum each day will be likely to be withdrawn; besides which we always have a large amount of commercial paper which we could rediscount at the Bank of France at once. Therefore we keep just enough cash in vault to meet any cheques which may be presented.

Q. Do you carry an account in New York?

A. We lend money to bankers there. Different kinds of loans, some are at sixty days or ninety days.

Q. You are not restricted in any way as to the character of the undertakings you may make?

A. No; we can do as we like.

Q. Do you specialise in practice or do you consider propositions of various kinds?

A. All sorts of propositions, railway building, harbors, tramways, electrical enterprises, etc.

Q. Do you sometimes take an interest in business such as placing Pennsylvania Railroad and Union Pacific bonds?

A. Yes.

Q. You frequently act as managers of syndicates which might include the other banks of France?

A. Very often we take the head of syndicates.

Q. You are the leading bank in that business in France?

A. They say so.

Q. Is there cordial co-operation between the banks of Paris and the Bank of France, generally speaking?

A. Yes; business as a rule is done, when it is a big business, with several of these big societies or banks, and perhaps with all of them together.

Q. Are there particular corporations in which you have a permanent interest?

A. Yes; so as to have some control in certain large companies.

Q. What do you think of the att.i.tude of the Government toward the Bank of France? That is to say, are they exacting more and more from it?

A. I do not think that they exact too much from it. The shares of the Bank of France are always very high in price; it has not hurt at all the development of the bank.

CReDIT FONCIER DE FRANCE

INTERVIEW WITH M. TOUCHARD, SECRETARY[181]

Q. Is the Credit Foncier a public inst.i.tution?

A. Yes, it is a mixed inst.i.tution; it is at the same time a joint-stock company and a society under the control of the Government by reason of privileges which the Government has granted to it.

Q. Who are the shareholders?