Passage 1
When a savings account is opened in a bank, the depositor must sign a deposit agreement, By signing the agreement, the depositor agrees to abide by the rules and regulations of the bank. These rules and regulations vary with different banks and may be altered and amended from time to time. At this time , a passbook may be given to the depositor, This is a small book in which the bank teller enters the date and amount of each deposit or withdrawal and initials the entry, The passbook is to be presented at the bank or mailed to the bank along with a deposit or withdrawal slip each time money is deposited or withdrawn from the account. An alternative practice for depositing or withdrawing money from a savings account is to give the depositor a small register for recording deposits and withdrawals and a pad of deposit-withdrawal forms, This procedure eliminates the use of the passbook. Each time a deposit or withdrawal from savings is made, The appropriate part of one of the forms is filled in, signed, recorded in the register and presented or mailed to the bank with deposit items or other documents, The bank gives a machine-printed receipt to the depositor or returns it by mail. There should be a separate savings account in the ledger to record these activities.
Traditionally, the principal differences between a savings account and a checking account are that interest is paid regularly by the bank on a savings account and withdrawals from a savings account may be made at the bank or by mail by the depositor or an authorized agent, Depositors use checking accounts primarily as a convenient means of making payments, while savings accounts are used primarily as a means of accumulating funds with interest . An increasingly common practice is for the bank to combine savings and checking accounts and get depositors’ permission to make automatic transfers of funds from the savings portion to the checking portion whenever the latter falls below a specified minimum balance, This amounts to giving the depositor an interest-earning checking account.What is the primary purpose of a savings account
