COMPARISON AND SECURITY CLEARANCE 341
machine, instead of requiring members to make out and submit
to it clearing sheets made out by hand. The new practice was
at first confined to cleared bonds. The plan provides that
after the members complete the exchange of their cleared
bond exchange tickets, the latter be delivered to the N ight
Clearing Branch. Here the written data on each ticket respect-
ing deliverer and receiver, the name, price and amount of
the security, etc, is translated—so to speak—into holes punched
on special cards. These can be rapidly sorted by machine, and
from them other machines can print each member firm’s clear-
ing sheet.
Thus the great amount of detailed clerical work required
by the preparation of clearing sheets, which formerly had to
be done by clerks of the member firms, may be performed
centrally by machines in the Stock Clearing Corporation. The
machine clearance of bonds has proved so successful that at
this writing it is definitely planned to experiment with the
larger problem of machine stock clearance. If this proves
similarly successful, all cleared securities may in the future be
handled in this way, and in consequence present practices with
members’ clearing sheets as above described may to that extent
be changed.
Depositing Checks and Approving Drafts.—Meanwhile
the department of the Night Branch that supervises the checks
and drafts sent to it, makes out a summarized deposit slip for
all checks received the previous evening. Certification is ob-
tained on all checks over $5,000 and the entire number of
checks is then deposited in the Bank of the Manhattan Trust
Co. The accuracy of all drafts against the Night Branch of
the Stock Clearing Corporation, which have been also turned in
the previous evening by clearing members, is proved. As
stated, the total amount of the drafts must exactly equal the
total amount of the checks.
It only remains for the manager of the Night Branch to
approve the drafts by signing them in the space on the left-
