Savings associations, mutual in character, are very old, and were patterned after the English type. The first bank of this sort incorporated in New York was the Bank for Savings of New York City, chartered in 1819, a year which saw the rise of these institutions all through the East. In 1820 the Albany Savings Bank was incorporated. At first they were of a "semi-benevolent" nature intended to provide a safe depository for the surplus earnings of
wage workers, and those whose means did not put them on a par with the wealthy banker. Such a bank lacked most of the features of a State institution, having either stockholders or many officers other than honorary.

The deposits were held in trust for the benefit of those who made them, and all profits were divided proportionately. The State exercised little supervision over them, and the moneys handled were exempt from taxation. Trustees managed the affairs of the association, and seldom received pay. They increased more rapidly than did the State banks during the early days, but were outdistanced, in numbers at least, when New York started its free banking system.

In 1854 about one-seventh of the banks in the State were of the savings variety, they had come under the supervision of the State Banking Department the year before. By 1873 they made up almost a third of the banks with 150, this number seldom having been exceeded since in organizations not affiliated with some different institution. In the number of depositors and sum of the deposits the savings banks surpassed those of all other banks in 1873, a condition which was true in 1900, and in this year their resources were almost as great as the discount banks and trust companies combined.

The savings bank led a rather precarious life before it was taken in as one of the children of the Banking Department in 1853, and care insisted upon in its management. Their accounts after that were examined with the same regularity as other banks, restrictions were laid, and laws passed limiting what they might do. They were allowed to continue as mutual organizations, but with limitations. They still operate without capital stock, and the profits go to the depositors.

The laws affecting these institutions are very rigid, amply enough so to make them safe. There has been as few failures of savings banks in the last four decades as any other set of banking institutions, and the very few failures have been due to defalcations rather than to mismanagement. In recent years the tendency to consolidation which marks the present trend in banking, and the making of the savings department a branch of State banks and trust companies, has led to a decrease in the number of savings banks, but has greatly increased the facilities for the deposit of savings, and encouraged and taught the habit of saving.

The number of Savings banks in New York on January 1, 1926, was 266. These were capitalized at $93,207,400; had a surplus and undivided profits account of $124,492,575. The total deposits were $1,939,839,678, and total resources amounted to $2,262,109,441.