The Credit

The loanable capital which the banks have at their disposal streams to them in various ways. In the first place, being the cashiers of the industrial capitalists, all the money-capital which every producer and merchant must have as a reserve fund, or receives in payment, is concentrated in their hands. These funds are thus converted into loanable money-capital. In this way, the reserve fund of the commercial world, because it is concentrated in a common treasury, is reduced to its necessary minimum, and a portion of the money-capital which would otherwise have to lie slumbering as a reserve fund, is loaned out and serves as interest-bearing capital. In the second place, the loanable capital of the banks is formed by the deposits of money-capitalists who entrust them with the business of loaning them out. Furthermore, with the development of the banking system, and particularly as soon as banks came to pay interest on deposits, money savings and the temporarily idle money of all classes were deposited with them. Small amounts, each in itself incapable of acting in the capacity of money-capital, merge together into large masses and thus form a money power. This aggregation of small amounts must be distinguished as a specific function of the banking system from its go-between activities between the money-capitalists proper and the borrowers. In the final analysis, the revenues, which are usually but gradually consumed, are also deposited with the banks.

The loan is made(we refer here strictly to commercial credit) by discounting bills of exchange — by converting bills of exchange into money before they come due — and by advances of various kinds: direct advances on personal credit, loans against securities, such as interest-bearing paper, government paper, stocks of all sorts, and, notably, overdrafts against bills of lading, dock warrants, and other certified titles of ownership of commodities and overdrawing deposits, etc.

The credit given by a banker may assume various forms, such as bills of exchange on other banks, cheques on them, credit accounts of the same kind, and finally, if the bank is entitled to issue notes — bank-notes of the bank itself. A bank-note is nothing but a draft upon a banker, payable at any time to the bearer, and given by the banker in place of private drafts.