"For the early pioneers in New Zealand saving for a home was difficult and the sum required was beyond the means of most people. To overcome this difficulty the early settlers turned to the practice followed in their home country. They formed co-operative saving organisations, known as building societies, into which they contributed a few hard earned pence each week to help one another accumulate sufficient funds to buy or build a home. In this way the Auckland Co-operative Terminating Building Society was born. Because the Society belonged to the pioneer/worker of the late nineteenth century, the building society story is as much a history of New Zealand's social and economic development as it is the history of the financial services organisation now known as Countrywide Banking Corporation Limited. This history of Countrywide Bank covers the one hundred years from 10 March 1897 to the preent day. It was a time in which both the quill pen and the desktop computer figure, in which counting cash was an end in itself and in which we entered the cashless society ..."--Inside front cover.