Q.Explain the correspondence of the secretary with the bank of the co-operative society.

A registered society keeps its money in a bank account in its own name, and because money is involved, the bank acts only on properly authorised written instructions from the secretary.

A registered co-operative society, being a body corporate, keeps its money in a bank account operated in the society's own name, and it may borrow from a bank or place its surplus in deposit as its business requires. All of the society's dealings with its bank are carried on in writing, and the secretary — as the authorised correspondent of the society — is the officer who conducts this bank correspondence on the strength of the managing committee's resolutions. Correct bank correspondence is important because it involves the society's money, and a bank will act only on properly authorised written instructions.

The occasions for correspondence with the bank arise throughout the society's working. At the outset the secretary writes to the bank requesting it to open an account — current, savings, or fixed-deposit — in the name of the society, enclosing the managing committee's resolution authorising the account and the specimen signatures of the office-bearers who are to operate it. Thereafter he instructs the bank to honour cheques signed by those authorised signatories, and intimates any change in the signatories when office-bearers change. He corresponds to place surplus funds in fixed deposit, to renew a deposit, or to encash one before maturity, as the committee decides. Where finance is needed, he applies for a loan, cash credit, or overdraft, forwarding the required documents, and later corresponds about repayment. …