Sir, Surely Captain Mainwaring always used the word “bank” when describing his place of work? But Richard Heller (letter, Mar 12), in saying that Captain Mainwaring “received money . . . kept some of it in cash or on call, and lent the rest”, seems to be describing an early form of building society. The truth behind the “model of banking” he refers to was that it allowed the creation of credit under the fractional reserve system and multiplied the received money, thus lending out far more than originally received, but within prudent guidelines.
A change since Captain Mainwaring’s time is that the prudence of old-style local banking was overwhelmed by loan targets from head office and was one cause of the system collapsing.
Charles Bazlinton
Alresford, Hants