UK was quite detailed, with several periods of “ill-health” and lack of trust in their capacity resulting in government intervention in most aspects of the operation and day-to-day management of savings banks, particularly the nature of their investment portfolios. An essential feature of a savings bank in the UK was that depositors should have a guarantee of the nominal value of their savings, so that these could be withdrawn at their full value with interest no matter how long the deposit. Funds would be under control of voluntary managers or trustees, hence the roots of the name. This guarantee could not be achieved unless funds were held in securities with a similar guarantee. As a result of the 1817 Act all money received by trustee savings banks, other than that needed to deal with everyday transactions, was held by the Bank of England to the credit of the National Debt Commissioners. The Act specified duties of the treasurers, managers and trustees of the savings banks, none of whom was to derive any benefit from their office. This feature was to dominate the management of the TSBs until the 1970s. Savings banks paying interest on deposits (at a rate ranging from 3% to 5%) proliferated. The number of successful institutions in the UK grew until there were 645 in 1861. Their business remained in collecting low-volume deposits, as early attempts at market diversification had been curtailed by the Savings Bank Act 1891. Modern history of the trustee savings banks By the inter-war years it had become clear that trustee savings banks could compete in the retail bank market. By 1919 the sum of cash and assets held on deposit for all the TSBs reached £100 million, which rose to £162 million in 1929 and £292 million in 1939. From the 1970s the Irish trustee savings banks followed a similar path of amalgamation to their UK counterparts, becoming, in 1992, a single entity; this was purchased by Irish Life and Permanent in 2002. Together, the TSBs were as big as any of the four main London clearing banks. There was little competition between the various trustee savings banks. Each individual trustee savings bank served a separate geographic area, although other organisations competed with them, and this competition grew stronger after 1945. In 1955, inter-savings-bank clearing was extended to the whole country. Such a system had been in operation in Surrey in the