Page:Hints About Investments (1926).pdf/220

 definite sums due, from the British Government or from accepting houses, usually of the highest credit. The investments are nearly all obligations of the British Government and the small outside minority are pretty certain to be publicly quoted and easy to deal in at the quoted price. The Advances to customers are also loans for definite amounts made to customers, concerning whose standing and solvency the banks have exceptionally good opportunities of satisfying themselves; and the liability of customers against acceptances is in the same category, though, in this case, the bank has not lent its money, but only its name, thereby incurring a liability to pay a sum if the customer fails to do so, and this liability appears on the debit side of the balance-sheet.

All these items, representing more than 300 millions out of the 3084 millions which is the sum total of the assets, are a matter of a definite sum owned by or owed to the bank, or represented by securities saleable at or above the figure set against them. In the case of the advances to customers and the customers' liability on acceptance there must be, and in those of the short loans and discounts there may be, some question whether all the multifarious borrowers who have had