EXPANSION OF GERMAN BANKING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9616, 9 October 1909, Page 7

EXPANSION OF GERMAN BANKING.

Some time ago there we.s some <alk of the [establishment of a Ger man Lank in Australasia. Inquiries, indeed, were made, but oireuni'-tancFS were not sufficiently favourable, and the project was dropped. For many years a Frer.ch bank has been established there It is, however, not a bank of deposit or issue, as far as Australia is concerned, and confines its operations almost exclusively to exchange business. This is the only foreign bank oterating in the Commonwealth. Though the Germans thought b-.tter of establishing an institution of their own in Sydney, fhey have, launched out very extensively in other parts of the world. XI is. in fact, has been a noteworthy feature of recent history of German banking. A vast amount of capital has been forthcoming for these enterprises. A list of these oversea institutions has baen compiled by a French paper, from which we gather that from 1904 to 1906 no less than 11 banks of this character were formed Of these the largest in point of nominal capital was the Mexican Bank fuer Handel unci Industrie, whose capital was about 40 million i marks. Next in size came the Ameri-

ca Bank, 25 million marks; the German South America Bank, 20 million marks; the Deutsche Orient Bank, 16 million marks; the Banque d'Orient. 15 million francs In addition, several large foreign banks were founded in earlier years, notably the Commercial Italian Bank, with a capital of 105 million francs, and the German Overseas Bank, with one of 20 million marks. it will thus be seen that German banking interests abroad are now of au important character, but in one respect they possess a marked difference from British institutions working in foreign countries a-ni the colonies. In the latter case the banks are almost without exception independent organisations quit? unaffiliated with any of the great English joint stock banks. But the German foreign banks, on the contrary, are usually controlled by one of other of the large banks in Germary, ar.d it is doubtless largelj owing to this fact that they have been able to commence operations with such a large capital instead o; steadily building up a eormectior from comparatively small beginnings as so many of our English banks hav< done.