Chapter D: S. Nr. 37 c (15.) ex 94

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}Von der Partei auszufüllen.

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[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.]

Space for notifications sent to the holder of the current
account (affix a postage stamps of 2 kr.).

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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.

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).

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Post-Stempel:

[3]Unterschrift
des Postbeamten;

D.S. Nr. 120 (1.) ex 96.

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Post-Stempel

_N^o 1_

[4]Erlag-Schein

über eine
Einlage von ____ fl. __ kr.

geleistet durch: (Vor-und Zuname des Steuerträgers)

(dessen Gewerbe oder Beschästigung)

(dessen Wohn-oder Betriebsort)

Bez Gasse (Platz); Haus-Nr.

auf das Postsparcassen-Check-Conto Nr. 809,900 des

Städtischen Central-Steueramtes in Wien.

[5]Als Grundateuer:

Bezirk (Sleuergeineinde) ___ Besitzbogen-Nr. ___

[6]Als Hammeclammenutuer:
Bezirk (Sleuergeineinde) ___ Conscript.-Nr.