Then by the method of payment of dues the debt is, from the first month, steadily reduced and the security for the loan therefore grows constantly better.
(b) Premiums are collected in addition, sometimes in the form of a higher rate of interest, but the practice of charging premiums has been mostly abandoned and the total amount of premiums now constitutes less than 1 per cent of all payments from members.
(c) Fines for delinquency also are less commonly imposed now and constitute a small fraction of 1 per cent of total payments.
(d) Deductions are made on account of withdrawal before the maturity of the shares; under these circumstances it is usual to pay a portion but not all of the accumulated profits, sometimes a proportion increasing as the shares approach maturity.
Different plans have been and still are followed in respect to the method of issuing the shares.

Under the _terminating plan_ all the shares begin and mature at the same time (for all members that continue to the end).

Whereupon the association dissolves or starts anew.

The chief difficulty in this plan is that the association has too few funds to loan at the beginning of its career, and a surplus of unloanable funds as it nears the maturity of the series.

It is therefore necessary to encourage or to compel the withdrawal of non-borrowing members on the payment of estimated profits to date.
The better to remedy this difficulty the _serial plan_ was devised, by which new series of stock are issued at intervals--yearly, half-yearly, quarterly, and even oftener.
Sec.12.