Co-operative Competition of Members Another group of services of clearing houses is to promote co operative competition. By this is meant uniformity of practices, the conducting of business in the open and on a fair basis, and the elimination of secret, underhand, unfair, or cutthroat practices. It has brought uniform counter checks, uniform exchange rates, honest advertising, and, in some places, uniform interest on de posits. This kind of competition is tending to prevail in all busi ness lines. The most important of these matters is probably the establishment of uniform exchange charges; this subject will be treated in the following chapters, in connection with the country collection department (Chapter XXXV) and the transit depart ment (Chapter XXXVII). Some clearing houses fix upon a ser vice charge on accounts of small size; that is, checking accounts averaging for the month less than $100, $500, or $1,000, as the case may be, are made subject to a service charge of from 25 cents to $5 per month. Another line of uniform action is the
matter of donations and subscriptions, many of the clearing houses having a rule to the effect that no member can donate or subscribe in excess of a certain amount except by associated action.
The expenses of the clearing houses are met in several ways. First, there is the payment of annual dues and of still heavier dues at the time of entrance. Not all clearing houses levy entrance dues, but the great majority of them do. The second method is an assessment against members, prorated according to the amount which each member has sent to the clearing house during the preceding period. The expenses of the city department and the city collection department and of the country department are kept distinct, and the expenses of each are prorated separately according to the business done for the different members. The expenses of the examination department are also prorated on the basis of the amount of time spent in examining each.