The original
Rules of the BMB, consequent upon the Bank being set up under the Birmingham Corporation Act of 1919, listed three objectives
for the Bank:
(a) To receive deposits and to guarantee the payment of interest on and the repayment of such
deposits.
(b) To advance money to any depositors desiring to purchase or acquire a dwelling house or dwelling houses
in the City of
Birmingham, or any interest therein.
(c) To utilise and invest the funds of the Bank in accordance with the Act and the regulations made thereunder, or such other
regulations as may be made as therein provided.
These Rules, in relation to objectives (a) and (b), referred to the
'Savings Bank Department' and the 'Housing Department', respectively. The 1919 Rules were subsequent to the Bank's 'Savings and Housing
Bank Regulations' (approved by the Treasury: August 25th 1919). These regulations were subsequently supplanted by The Birmingham Municipal
Bank Regulations of 1925 which formulated the rules regarding each of these two departments in two separate sections, now called:
the Depositors' Department; and
The Depositors' Department was created
with a single product - a simple, passbook-based, savings account. This product was the only savings account provided by the Bank
until 1957. Further products did not follow until the 1970s. Confusingly, each of the products was identified as being a Department;
the original product eventually becoming known as the No 1 Department, the tax-concession product introduced in 1957 is known as the
No 2 Department, etc.
The history relating to the Deposit accounts, and details of how they operated, is described in the
following sections:
Account Types
Overview of the various Savings and Investment products offered by the Bank
Numbering of Accounts
Details of the systems used to
number depositors' accounts; and for the identification of branches
Examples of passbooks
issued to depositors
Nominations
The system that enabled Depositors to nominate a person to receive a sum on death
How the Bank administered these types of account