What are the Functions of Banks?

Diagram
The functions of banks are briefly highlighted in following Diagram or Chart.

These functions of banks are explained in following paragraphs of this article.

A. Primary Functions of Banks

The primary functions of a bank are also known as banking functions. They are the main functions of a bank. These primary functions of banks are explained below.

1. Accepting Deposits
The bank collects deposits from the public. These deposits can be of different types, such as :a. b. c. d. Saving Deposits Fixed Deposits Current Deposits Recurring Deposits

a. Saving Deposits
This type of deposits encourages saving habit among the public. The rate of interest is low. At present it is about 5% p.a. Withdrawals of deposits are allowed subject to certain restrictions. This account is suitable to salary and wage earners. This account can be opened in single name or in joint names.

b. Fixed Deposits

Lump sum amount is deposited at one time for a specific period. Higher rate of interest is paid, which varies with the period of deposit. Withdrawals are not allowed before the expiry of the period. Those who have surplus funds go for fixed deposit.

c. Current Deposits
This type of account is operated by businessmen. Withdrawals are freely allowed. No interest is paid. In fact, there are service charges. The account holders can get the benefit of overdraft facility.

d. Recurring Deposits
This type of account is operated by salaried persons and petty traders. A certain sum of money is periodically deposited into the bank. Withdrawals are permitted only after the expiry of certain period. A higher rate of interest is paid.

2. Granting of Loans and Advances

The bank advances loans to the business community and other members of the public. The rate charged is higher than what it pays on deposits. The difference in the interest rates (lending rate and the deposit rate) is its profit. The types of bank loans and advances are :a. b. c. d. Overdraft Cash Credits Loans Discounting of Bill of Exchange

a. Overdraft
This type of advances are given to current account holders. No separate account is maintained. All entries are made in the current account. A certain amount is sanctioned as overdraft which can be withdrawn within a certain period of time say three months or so. Interest is charged on actual amount withdrawn. An overdraft facility is granted against a collateral security. It is sanctioned to businessman and firms.

b. Cash Credits
The client is allowed cash credit upto a specific limit fixed in advance. It can be given to current account holders as well as to others who do not have an account with bank. Separate cash credit account is maintained. Interest is

charged on the amount withdrawn in excess of limit. The cash credit is given against the security of tangible assets and / or guarantees. The advance is given for a longer period and a larger amount of loan is sanctioned than that of overdraft.

c. Loans
It is normally for short term say a period of one year or medium term say a period of five years. Now-a-days, banks do lend money for long term. Repayment of money can be in the form of installments spread over a period of time or in a lumpsum amount. Interest is charged on the actual amount sanctioned, whether withdrawn or not. The rate of interest may be slightly lower than what is charged on overdrafts and cash credits. Loans are normally secured against tangible assets of the company.

d. Discounting of Bill of Exchange

The bank can advance money by discounting or by purchasing bills of exchange both domestic and foreign bills. The bank pays the bill amount to the drawer or the beneficiary of the bill by deducting usual discount charges. On maturity, the bill is presented to the drawee or acceptor of the bill and the amount is collected.

B. Secondary Functions of Banks

The bank performs a number of secondary functions, also called as non-banking functions. These important secondary functions of banks are explained below.

1. Agency Functions
The bank acts as an agent of its customers. The bank performs a number of agency functions which includes :a. b. c. d. e. f. Transfer of Funds Collection of Cheques Periodic Payments Portfolio Management Periodic Collections Other Agency Functions

a. Transfer of Funds
The bank transfer funds from one branch to another or from one place to another.

b. Collection of Cheques
The bank collects the money of the cheques through clearing section of its customers. The bank also collects money of the bills of exchange.

c. Periodic Payments
On standing instructions of the client, the bank makes periodic payments in respect of electricity bills, rent, etc.

d. Portfolio Management
The banks also undertakes to purchase and sell the shares and debentures on behalf of the clients and accordingly debits or credits the account. This facility is called portfolio management.

e. Periodic Collections
The bank collects salary, pension, dividend and such other periodic collections on behalf of the client.

f. Other Agency Functions

They act as trustees, executors, advisers and administrators on behalf of its clients. They act as representatives of clients to deal with other banks and institutions.

2. General Utility Functions

The bank also performs general utility functions, such as :a. b. c. d. e. f. g. Issue of Drafts, Letter of Credits, etc. Locker Facility Underwriting of Shares Dealing in Foreign Exchange Project Reports Social Welfare Programmes Other Utility Functions

a. Issue of Drafts and Letter of Credits

Banks issue drafts for transferring money from one place to another. It also issues letter of credit, especially in case of, import trade. It also issues travellers' cheques.

b. Locker Facility
The bank provides a locker facility for the safe custody of valuable documents, gold ornaments and other valuables.

c. Underwriting of Shares
The bank underwrites shares and debentures through its merchant banking division.

d. Dealing in Foreign Exchange

The commercial banks are allowed by RBI to deal in foreign exchange.

e. Project Reports
The bank may also undertake to prepare project reports on behalf of its clients.

f. Social Welfare Programmes

It undertakes social welfare programmes, such as adult literacy programmes, public welfare campaigns, etc.

g. Other Utility Functions

It acts as a referee to financial standing of customers. It collects creditworthiness information about clients of its customers. It provides market information to its customers, etc. It provides travellers' cheque facility.

I Am A Filipino (a speech by Carlos P. Romulo)

by The Filipino Student on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 9:40am

From: dickieaguado.multiply.com I am a Filipino - inheritor of a glorious past, hostage to the uncertain future. As such I must prove equal to a two-fold taskthe task of meeting my responsibility to the past, and the task of performing my obligation to the future.

I sprung from a hardy race - child of many generations removed of ancient Malayan pioneers. Across the centuries, the memory comes rushing back to me: of brown-skinned men putting out to sea in ships that were as frail as their hearts were stout. Over the sea I see them come, borne upon the billowing wave and the whistling wind, carried upon the mighty swell of hope- hope in the free abundance of new land that was to be their home and their children's forever.

This is the land they sought and found. Every inch of shore that their eyes first set upon, every hill and mountain that beckoned to them with a green and purple invitation, every mile of rolling plain that their view encompassed, every river and lake that promise a plentiful living and the fruitfulness of commerce, is a hollowed spot to me.

By the strength of their hearts and hands, by every right of law, human and divine, this land and all the appurtenances thereof - the black and fertile soil, the seas and lakes and rivers teeming with fish, the forests with their inexhaustible wealth in wild life and timber, the mountains with their bowels swollen with minerals - the whole of this rich and happy land has been, for centuries without number, the land of my fathers. This land I received in trust from them and in trust will pass it to my children, and so on until the world no more.

I am a Filipino. In my blood runs the immortal seed of heroes - seed that flowered down the centuries in deeds of courage and defiance. In my veins yet pulses the same hot blood that sent Lapulapu to battle against the alien foe that drove Diego Silang and Dagohoy into rebellion against the foreign oppressor.

That seed is immortal. It is the self-same seed that flowered in the heart of Jose Rizal that morning in Bagumbayan when a volley of shots put an end to all that was mortal of him and made his spirit deathless forever; the same that flowered in the

hearts of Bonifacio in Balintawak, of Gergorio del Pilar at Tirad Pass, of Antonio Luna at Calumpit; that bloomed in flowers of frustration in the sad heart of Emilio Aguinaldo at Palanan, and yet burst fourth royally again in the proud heart of Manuel L. Quezon when he stood at last on the threshold of ancient Malacaang Palace, in the symbolic act of possession and racial vindication.

The seed I bear within me is an immortal seed. It is the mark of my manhood, the symbol of dignity as a human being. Like the seeds that were once buried in the tomb of Tutankhamen many thousand years ago, it shall grow and flower and bear fruit again. It is the insigne of my race, and my generation is but a stage in the unending search of my people for freedom and happiness.

I am a Filipino, child of the marriage of the East and the West. The East, with its languor and mysticism, its passivity and endurance, was my mother, and my sire was the West that came thundering across the seas with the Cross and Sword and the Machine. I am of the East, an eager participant in its struggles for liberation from the imperialist yoke. But I also know that the East must awake from its centuried sleep, shape of the lethargy that has bound his limbs, and start moving where destiny awaits.

For, I, too, am of the West, and the vigorous peoples of the West have destroyed forever the peace and quiet that once were ours. I can no longer live, being apart from those world now trembles to the roar of bomb and cannon shot. For no man and no nation is an island, but a part of the main, there is no longer any East and West - only individuals and nations making those momentous choices that are hinges upon which history resolves.

At the vanguard of progress in this part of the world I stand - a forlorn figure in the eyes of some, but not one defeated and lost. For through the thick, interlacing branches of habit and custom above me I have seen the light of the sun, and I know that it is good. I have seen the light of justice and equality and freedom and my heart has been lifted by the vision of democracy, and I shall not rest until my land and my people shall have been blessed by these, beyond the power of any man or nation to subvert or destroy.

I am a Filipino, and this is my inheritance. What pledge shall I give that I may prove worthy of my inheritance? I shall give the pledge that has come ringing down the corridors of the centuries, and it shall be compounded of the joyous cries of my Malayan forebears when they first saw the contours of this land loom before their eyes, of the battle cries that have resounded in every field of combat from Mactan to Tirad pass, of the voices of my people when they sing:

Land of the Morning,Child of the sun returningNe'er shall invadersTrample thy sacred shore.

Out of the lush green of these seven thousand isles, out of the heartstrings of sixteen million people all vibrating to one song, I shall weave the mighty fabric of my pledge. Out of the songs of the farmers at sunrise when they go to labor in the

fields; out of the sweat of the hard-bitten pioneers in Mal-ig and Koronadal; out of the silent endurance of stevedores at the piers and the ominous grumbling of peasants Pampanga; out of the first cries of babies newly born and the lullabies that mothers sing; out of the crashing of gears and the whine of turbines in the factories; out of the crunch of ploughs upturning the earth; out of the limitless patience of teachers in the classrooms and doctors in the clinics; out of the tramp of soldiers marching, I shall make the pattern of my pledge:

"I am a Filipino born of freedom and I shall not rest until freedom shall have been added unto my inheritance - for myself and my children's children - forever.

________________________________

WHO IS Carlos P. Romulo?

Carlos Pea Rmulo (14 January 1899, Camiling, Tarlac, Philippines 15 December 1985, Manila, Philippines) was a Filipino diplomat, politician, soldier, journalist and author. He was a reporter at 16, a newspaper editor by the age of 20, and a publisher at 32. He is the co-founder of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines.

He graduated from the University of the Philippines, (BA) 1918; Columbia University, New York City, (MA), 1921, Received from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa), 1935; Rollins College, Florida, Doctor of Literature (Honoris Causa), 1946; University of Athens, Greece, Doctor of Philosophy (Honoris Causa), 1948, University of the Philippines, Honorary Doctor of 'Laws, April 1949, Harvard University, Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa, 1950.

Rmulo served eight Philippine presidents, from Manuel L. Quezon to Ferdinand Marcos, as a cabinet member or as the countrys representative to the United States and to the United Nations.

He served as the President of the Fourth Session of United Nations General Assembly from 19491950, and chairman of the United Nations Security Council. He had served with General Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific, was Ambassador to the United States, and became the first non-American to win the Pulitzer Prize in Correspondence in 1942. The Pulitzer Prize website says Carlos P. Romulo of Philippine Herald was awarded "For his observations and forecasts of Far Eastern developments during a tour of the trouble centers from Hong Kong to Batavia."

He served as Resident Commissioner of the Philippines to the United States Congress from 1944 to 1946. He was the signatory for the Philippines to the United Nations Charter when it was founded in 1946. He was the Philippines' Secretary (Minister from 1973 to 1984) of Foreign Affairs under President Elpidio Quirino from 1950 to 1952, under President Diosdado Macapagal from 1963 to 1964 and under President Ferdinand Marcos from 1968 to 1984.

In his career in the United Nations, Rmulo was a strong advocate of human rights, freedom and decolonization. During the selection of the UN's official seal, he looked over the seal-to-be and asked, "Where is the Philippines?" US Senator Warren Austin, head of the selection committee, explained, "It's too small to include. If we put the Philippines, it would be no more than a dot." "I want that dot!" insisted Romulo. Today, a tiny dot between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea can be found on the UN seal. In 1948 in Paris, France, at the third UN General Assembly, he strongly disagreed with a proposal made by the Soviet delegation headed by Andrei Vishinsky, who challenged his credentials by insulting him with this quote: "You are just a little man from a little country." In return, Romulo replied, "It is the duty of the little Davids of this world to fling the pebbles of truth in the eyes of the blustering Goliaths and force them to behave!", leaving Vishinsky with nothing left to do but sit down. He was a candidate for the position of United Nations Secretary-General in 1953, but did not win. Instead, he returned to the Philippines and was a candidate for the nomination as the presidential candidate for the Liberal Party, but lost at the party convention to the incumbent Elpidio Quirino, who ran unsuccessfully for re-election against Ramon Magsaysay. Quirino had agreed to a secret ballot at the convention, but after the convention opened, the president demanded an open roll-call voting, leaving the delegates no choice but supporting Quirino, the candidate of the party machine. Feeling betrayed, Romulo left the Liberal Party and became national campaign manager of Magsaysay, the candidate of the opposing Nacionalista Party who won the election.

In April 1955 he led the Philippines' delegation to the Asian-African Conference at Bandung.

Rmulo, in all, wrote and published 18 books, which included The United (novel), I Walked with Heroes (autobiography), I

Saw the Fall of the Philippines, Mother America and I See the Philippines Rise (war-time memoirs).
He died, at 86, in Manila on 15 December 1985 and was buried in the Heroes Cemetery (Libingan ng mga Bayani). He was honored as the Philippines greatest diplomat in the 20th Century. In 1980, he was extolled by United Nations SecretaryGeneral Kurt Waldheim as "Mr. United Nations" for his valuable services to the United Nations and his dedication to freedom and world peace.

Nature of Staffing Function

1. Staffing is an important managerial function- Staffing function is the most important mangerial act along with planning, organizing, directing and controlling. The operations of these four functions depend upon the manpower which is available through staffing function. Staffing is a pervasive activity- As staffing function is carried out by all mangers and in all types of concerns where business activities are carried out.

2.

3.

Staffing is a continuous activity- This is because staffing function continues throughout the life of an organization due to the transfers and promotions that take place. 4. The basis of staffing function is efficient management of personnels- Human resources can be efficiently managed by a system or proper procedure, that is, recruitment, selection, placement, training and development, providing remuneration, etc. 5. Staffing helps in placing right men at the right job. It can be done effectively through proper recruitment procedures and then finally selecting the most suitable candidate as per the job requirements. 3.6. Staffing is performed by all managers depending upon the nature of business, size of the company, qualifications and skills of managers,etc. In small companies, the top management generally performs this function. In medium and small scale enterprise, it is performed especially by the personnel department of that concern.