New Britain herald., 1930-06-14

the single exception Of California. that development would proceed slowly anyway Branch banking is really q country bank proposition. New York and Chicago bankers are generally opposed to it having learned many years ago that cor respondent banking serves them best As long as the banking units out in the states can be kept com paratively small the biggest and best business must come to the big cities, and the country banks them selves through their correspondent accounts must furnish a large part of the funds which this business is taken care of. The present system suits Wall Street bankers exactly. and why should they worry over the continued failures of 2 lot of little banks off somewhere in the distant prairies?'
 Banks Achieve Regional Unity
 Regional unity and cooperation for economic growth, the objective in New England of the New England Council. is being achieved in the northwest by the association of banks in group banking" systems, Gardner B. Perry vice president of the Northwest. Incorporation, to- day told the New England Council at its nineteenth quarterly meeting here. t.
 We have banded together over a hundred banks with S50O,000Q0 900 resources in each of two groups. covering our territory from a geo. graphical political industrial. and above all, agricultural standpoint" he declared. There is not single weak bank in either group. Before being initiated in our Council" so to speak, every bank is clean. strong and can demonstrate a good earning i capacity. By their very strength they breed confidence in all our banks and in all OUT endeavors.
 You in New England know prac- tically nothing about weak banks" he continued We think We know all about bank failures. The North west has gone through it's greatest deflation. and today we can say it is probably on the best and most solid foundation of its history, The banks, the corporations, the mer- chants and the farmers that have weathered the storm, and made money in spite of the storm, are the backbone of the industrial and az ricultural development before us Tt was felt by the leading bank CTS in our Northwest that we must have territorial independence, as far as our banking was concerned, that the needs Of the customers were better understood by the local bank CTS than by the officers in outside financial centers. Outside money was coming into our territory and flirt- ing for bank stock control, and the offers from the standpoint of profit were very attractive. With this sit- uation facing us. combined with the demand for specialized service to take care of the customers in the . smaller centers, which could not be supplied by a small unit bank, group banking came into being Tn the Northwest. It was necessary to bring back confidence into banks iH ! our territory
 'Count1ess stockings are being cmptied on the counters of the banks and their contents returned to sav- ! ings accounts. Then, too, our groups 1 have done much constructive work by stepping in and saving several i banks that were on the point of i failing. We did this without undue risk to ourselves and to the ever | lasting benefit Of the depositors, to cay nothing of the benefit to the stockholders.
 105 Banks in Group
 Tn our group we have 105 banks ia the key cities of Minnesota, North and South Dakota. Montsna, west crn Wisconsin. eastern Washington, eastern Nebraska. and part of Iowa l The stockholders Of our bank III each city have exchanged their stock for rtock in the Northwest Incorporation. so that they have be- come stockholders at large with l banking interaara over a big diversi- i fled territory. Automatically our stockholders broaden his interest,
 The bank directors and the bank ! officers are equally cognizant of the 1 fact and so ara building Up q ter rIrorial consciousness that is boom ing th7 Northwest as a whole, and drowning the narrow city rivalry ot ,Ae past. Between the First Bank i Sock rrcun and our group we have q le2st 50u local directors. men m every call of life the leaders ot their particular localities, lmhued with tho spirit Of bank and town cooperation. working 10 build up the Northwest as whole, and having ! thrown away the tools of jealousy formerly used for scuttling a neigh ! boring town
 Bank Its Own Customer
 "Our form Of group banking l>eeps alive the individuality of the hank to it's own customer The board of directors and officers ot each bank are local men, who have full control of the bank and aoso- lutely pass on the loans of the bank
 The holding companies are own cd and controlled proportlonately by the original stockholders of the con stituent banks and the policies are promulgated by representative d. rcctors picked from the entire ter rirory The holding company super vises the component banks and sup plies them with expert advice on various phases of banking serVlce that they are demanding
 The Northwest groups own about ! a7 per cent of their affiliated banks leaving about two per cent for d. rartors qualifying shares. We have given the shareholders a. far better market for their stock than they formerly enjoyed, and we have di- ,rrsifIed their investment over