Note 406 — Chapter XIX
Reading edition
Since the foregoing was written, my attention has been called by Mr. Osmund Phillips, Financial Editor of the New York Times, and Editor of the Annalist, to indirect ways in which items on out of town banks sent to New York for collection will affect New York clearings. Country correspondent banks to which New York banks send these items for collection, may remit for them in four ways: (1) by sending cash; (2) by sending items on out-of-town banks, which the New York bank will send on to some other correspondent for collection; (3) by draft on the New York bank which has sent the items to be collected; (4) by draft on some other New York bank. In the last case, New York clearings are affected. The first case is not, quantitatively, important. The second and third cases would seem to be the normal types, assuming correspondent relations between New York banks and country banks to be reciprocal, since the New York bank would be disposed, as far as possible, to turn over its collection business to its own depositors among the country banks. Mr. Phillips says, however, that the fourth case is important. To the extent that this is true, our conclusion that out of town collection items do not affect New York clearings must be modified, and it becomes a matter of importance whether these items are large or small. My information, as stated above, is that Chicago exceeds New York City in this.
If, however, the Kansas City and Boston arrangements held in New York, these collection items would be represented twice in New York clearings. The fact that the items do not themselves get into the clearings remains.
Direct information regarding New York clearings is very desirable. Our indirect approach must be considered inconclusive until more detailed figures for New York City are at hand. We need figures covering all types of banks in New York, for a period of, say, a year (to allow for seasonal changes), in which deposits made by one bank in another are separated from other deposits. National banks alone would exaggerate the item of deposits by one bank in another, especially as they are the depositories of the great private banks.