Feb. 14 — The first complete detailed bank statement to be ever published by a commercial bank in America was published this year by the First National Bank of Englewood, Chicago suburb. The statement in full double page spread advertisements appeared in the South Town Economist of Chicago, when the bank issued its annual statement, and the story of it constituted one of the remarkable annals in the trend of bankers to tell the public more about their policies and institutions.
Lists every asset
The statement is the most complete possible. It lists every bond the bank owns; it gives the price the bond is carried at on the books of the bank and the value at the market; it gives a complete list of the commercial paper holdings of the bank with the names of firms.
In addition, it details its customers' loans and in this case without mentioning names. It classifies these loans and lists them by maturities…
One point worth noting is that this is a medium sized bank, and its frank statement demonstrates that such small institutions can be run just as safe as any bank in the country. No institution, with its footings in the hundreds of millions, could publish a better statement than the First National Bank of Englewood has this year.
