Background
The 1956 Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act is the primary legislation under which the bonds are authorised; the similar concept of Premium Bonds were introduced in the United Kingdom at the same time. Bonds were first sold in March 1957, with the first draw held in September of that year. Originally the Bank of Ireland, as the government's banker, was the operator of the scheme. When the scheme commenced, the biannual draws were in September and March where by means of six drums the winning serial number was drawn randomly; in 1972 the serial number was increased from six to seven digits for bonds issued after that time. In 1993 regulation was made for the conduct of the draws on a weekly basis using a computer-driven random number generator to determine winning numbers.
Read more about this topic: Prize Bond
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)