onducts so-called
transfer accounts with other banks and financial institutions against
which drafts can be drawn payable at any place where one of its
offices is located. Such drafts constitute the chief means through
which transfers of funds are made between different places.

The business of the Bank of France with private persons is limited by
the requirement that all paper discounted must have three signatures,
or two signatures and collateral security, and that advances can only
be made on the security of the forms of collateral indicated above.
Most business men find it either inconvenient or impossible to comply
with these conditions, and consequently transact most of their
business with other banking institutions. The third signature on paper
discounted by the Bank is, therefore, usually supplied by these
institutions, which thus act as an intermediary between the Bank and
the commercial world.

Next to the Bank of France, the most important banking institutions of
the country are the Credit Foncier, the Credit Lyonnais, the Comptoir
d'Escompte de Paris, the Societe Generale, and the Credit Industrielle
et Commercial. The Credit Foncier is principally engaged in extending
credit based on real estate security, but it also discounts large
amounts of commercial paper. Its organization is modeled after that of
the Bank of France, and, like that institution, it is controlled by
the state. Since it is primarily an investment bank, a description of
its principal operations will be deferred to the next chapter.

The four other banks mentioned are a product of the commercial life of
modern France, all having been established since the revolution of
1848. They are all heavily capitalized, the smallest, the Credit
Industrielle et Commercial, having a capital of 100,000,000 francs
($20,000,000), and the largest, the Societe Generale, having a capital
of 400,000,000 francs ($80,000,000), and all extend their business by
means of branches. The Credit Lyonnais and the Comptoir d'Escompte
have branches in France itself, the French colonies, and a number of
foreign countries; the Societe Generale, throughout France, in London,
and San Sebastian, Spain; and the Credit Industrielle et Commercial,
in Paris and its suburbs. Taken together, these four institutions
supply the French people in Paris and the Provinces with banking
facilities for both their domestic and their foreign business. While
in some of the larger provincial c