About this record

This clip is from Commonwealth Bank – The School Bank, a short black-and-white documentary film commissioned by the Commonwealth Bank to promote the school banking program. Inside a primary school classroom Mr Phillips, a representative from the Commonwealth Savings Bank, speaks to students about saving money and depositing it in a bank, and about the concept of interest. He then takes four students to the Commonwealth Savings Bank in Martin Place, including the customer service area.

Educational value

• This clip, from a film produced by the Australian National Film Board, was one of a series of 16 millimetre educational films made to promote the activities of the Commonwealth Savings Bank and educate Australian schoolchildren about its school banking program. School banking was introduced into all states between 1908 and 1928. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has been involved in school banking schemes since 1928.
• The Commonwealth Savings Bank of Australia was established in 1928 to manage the savings bank functions previously undertaken by the Savings Bank Department of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Under the Bank’s school banking program, schools accepted cash deposits by students into their passbooks on behalf of a bank that administered the program. These programs, developed mainly for primary schools, aimed to educate school students in banking processes and to encourage savings.
• The clip was probably filmed at a state school in Sydney at a time of growing economic prosperity and solid employment. Many Australian families had comfortable and stable suburban lifestyles and were able to afford an increasing number of consumer products. The existence of school savings accounts suggests that most schoolchildren were receiving at least some pocket money that they could save. 
• Although Mr Phillips is a Commonwealth Savings Bank representative, he is cleverly portrayed in the film as a teacher figure who educates students about saving. He gives the class a lesson in banking and, in what would have been an innovative film technique at the time, 'teleports' them to the Commonwealth Savings Bank at Martin Place.
• The banking chamber, with its huge hall and pillars, signified the institution’s importance and authority in a pre-electronic age when people had to visit the bank for almost all financial transactions. Even in small country towns, banks and post offices were among the grandest and most important buildings, the cornerstone of the community, symbolising the financial and commercial viability of the town.
• All of the staff members shown in the clip are male – at the time positions for women in banks were very restricted. When women were first employed in banks during World War I they were not allowed to handle cash or have contact with the public. Until World War II less than 10 per cent of bank staff were women, but many women were employed during the postwar banking boom. By the late 1960s women made up the majority of the bank workforce.