The commissioner may adopt rules and regulations with respect to bookkeeping methods and accounting practices designed to produce safety of operation and each State association and its officers and employees shall comply therewith. The commissioner may also adopt rules and regulations permitting the destruction of books, records, certificates, documents, reports, correspondence and other instruments, papers and writings of a State association, which, because of age or other reasons, need not be preserved; provided, however, that any association may make a photographic copy of any of its documents and records relating to the accounts of its members and the operation of its business, other than its notes, bonds, mortgages and other securities and investments, and may substitute the photographic copy for the original thereof. Thereafter the photographic copy or a positive print thereof, if the same be a negative, shall be deemed for any and all purposes to be an original counterpart of the original thereof and the association may destroy or otherwise dispose of the original.

Any photographic copy herein described or any positive print thereof, if the same be a negative, may be of the same or a different size than the original thereof, and may be a detached copy thereof, or may be combined in the same film with copies of other documents or records of the said association.

L.1963, c. 144, s. 197.