Chap. 147.—An ACT to amend and re-enact Section 12 of an Act entitled, ‘An Act
to revise, collate and codify into one Act the General Statutes of the Common-
wealth, relating to banks and banking, which act shall constitute and be desig-
nated and cited as the Virginia Banking Act, and to repeal all Code Sections
and all Acts and parts of Acts inconsistent therewith and to provide penalties
for the violation thereof,”’ approved March 27, 1928, relating to the kinds of
business banks may do, the powers they may exercise and limitations as to
investments. [H B 248]

Approved March 6, 1940

1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That
section twelve of an Act entitled, “An Act to revise, collate and codify
into one Act the General Statutes of the Commonwealth, relating to
banks and banking, which Act shall constitute and be designated and
cited as the Virginia Banking Act, and to repeal all Code Sections and
all Acts and parts of Acts inconsistent therewith and to provide
penalties for the violation thereof,’’ approved March twenty-seventh,
nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, be amended and re-enacted so
as to read as follows: ,

Section 12. Every such bank shall have power to exercise, by its
board of directors, or duly authorized officers or agents, subject to
law, all such incidental powers as shall be necessary to carry on the
business of banking, by discounting and negotiating bills of exchange,
promissory notes, drafts, and other evidences of debt; by receiving
deposits; by buying and selling exchange, coin, and bullion; by
loaning money on real and personal security, or collateral; by guar-
anteeing the payment of bonds, bills, notes and other obligations,
having not more than six months to run; by rediscounting paper;
and in purchasing and selling bonds.

No bank shall acquire or own its own stock except when done to
protect itself against loss from debts previously contracted, in which
case it shall be disposed of within twelve months from the time
acquired. Nor shall any bank invest any of its funds in shares of
stock of any other corporation nor in any notes or other obligations
secured by real estate on which as security it is prohibited by section
forty-eight-a of this act from making any loan; this provision shall
not, however, prevent any bank from acquiring any such stock,
notes or other obligations to protect itself or any fund in its custody
or possession against loss from debts theretofore contracted, nor from
acquiring, owning and holding stock of a building corporation of the
character and to the amount provided by section 31 of this act, nor
from acquiring, owning and holding stock of an agricultural credit
corporation organized under the laws of the State of Virginia, pro-
vided that the total amount of such stock shall not exceed twenty
per centum of the amount of the capital stock of such bank actually
paid in and unimpaired, plus the amount of its unimpaired surplus
fund, nor shall the provisions hereof be construed to require a bank
to dispose of any preferred stocks lawfully acquired as an investment
prior to the first day of January, nineteen hundred and forty.