The final disposition of the items is to send them, along with the collection register sheets, first to the note teller, who signs for the accepted time items, then to the fifth teller, who signs for the items payable in his district, and last to the country collec tion department, which signs for the items payable outside the collection district of the fifth teller. The collections are made through these departments.
From the collection register sheets entries are made on cus tomers' cards, containing the following data: their number, our number, name of drawee, amount, tenor, date received, and fate. From these cards it is possible to ascertain the amount outstand ing or collected for any particular account in any one period.
The three departments named above as signing for the items know them only by number and not by the name of the ulti mate beneficiary. Therefore for the proceeds received they credit Collections account with the amount in bulk, and send the foreign collections department a credit ticket with the net amount collected and the number of the item. This de partment then fills in the further particulars, namely, the name and place of the account to be credited and the date of the remittance letter. From these credit tickets credit ad vices are prepared. Before the advices are sent out they are used to stamp out on the collection register the fate of the item. The stamping out of these items is a further check on the department's work as to correctness of beneficiaries' names and, addresses; the credit advices then go to the for eign bookkeepers, who also check the amounts against their records, and are finally given by them to the outgoing mail department.
A charge is commonly made for the collection of all drafts to which are attached shipping documents, because they require extra attention. Clean drafts are collected free of charge, as far as the clearing house or federal reserve collection rules permit.
A great many duplicate drafts are received, which, after the originals have been paid, are worthless. If the originals go astray the duplicates become important. In order to know whether the originals have been received the department keeps a duplicate book. When duplicates arrive reference is made to this book, and if the originals have come to hand the duplicate drafts are marked "Original Paid," with date of payment, and filed according to dates received. Special instructions from the
drawee or indorser may lead the department to dispose of the duplicates in some other way. If the originals have not been received, the presentation and demand for the payment of the duplicates are made.
The Handling of the Discount Items Discount items are those sent to the foreign collections de partment in order to have them accepted by the various drawees, to have them discounted. upon advice of the remitter or in case it is necessary to cover an overdraft or in accordance with some other specific instructions, and to place the proceeds to the credit of some designated account. In some cases the bank has stand ing instructions from the correspondent to discount acceptances which it is holding, whenever the correspondent's account is reduced below a certain figure.
The method of executing these discount orders is first to prepare an offering slip giving the following data : amount of the item to be discounted, name of the remitter, name of the drawee, tenor, the discount rate, the date of maturity, and the last dis count rate. The offering slips are passed upon by the officers, who, upon consultation, fix the discount rate for each item. When the offering slips are returned, a clerk calculates the discount and pro ceeds and the total proceeds to be credited to the customer. The proper credit tickets and advices are then prepared; the advice is sent to the beneficiary; and the tickets, together with the items, to the domestic discount department to be held until maturity.
A card record is kept for each bank and individual for whom the bank discounts acceptances. The information on these cards covers the amount, the rate, the maturity date, and the number stamped on the item. Another card record is kept of the drawees of the bills which have been discounted, giving the amount of the bill, the stamped number, the tenor, and the maturity date. By this record the department can ascertain at any time the total amount discounted for any drawee and the amount outstanding against any particular drawee.