Corrected entry: Mr. Dawes Jr. states that the tuppence (two pence) invested by Michael grew into enough to pay off the mortgage on the house. Interest rates over that 20 year time period were about 4%, which would have made that 2p grow to all of 4p. Go nuts and assume an impossibly high return of 15% per annum, compound, consistent over the twenty years. Despite the fact that not even Bernie Madoff offered ridiculously high returns like that, after twenty years the original two pence investment would be worth 39p. As an aside, houses of the time cost about £750, far below current London prices, but still considerably more than 39p.
Corrected entry: Mr. Wilkins, hoping to foreclose on Michael Banks' home, leafs through a register listing all the bank's shareholders, then tells Michael, "I don't see your name." After Michael leaves, Wilkins rips out a page and throws it into the fireplace. At the top of the page is the name "Banks" in large letters but each of the other pages lists several names all written in small letters in a column on the left side of the page.
Correction: Why is this a mistake? There could be several reasons why Banks' name is more prominent. It could be based on the fact that George Banks was an important bank official or it could be dependent upon the number of shares owned.
Correction: In the movie, Mr Dawes said "We did just that, and thanks to several quite clever investments...that tuppence has grown into quite a sum" - so the investment didn't grow by interest alone. Growing a £0.02 investment to £750 is unlikely, but not impossible, especially if the friendly bank president fudged a little and pulled it off losing investments and only counted winning investments. And of course, Dawes could have been telling a white lie to make up for the way Wilkins treated the Banks family and planned to pay off the loan with his own funds.
sfbiker1
Absolutely. The 2 pence was an investment, not a deposit. It is perfectly in keeping with the whimsical magic theme of the movie that the investment should have grown exponentially. Real world investments have done better. A 5 cent Bitcoin investment (about 2 pence!) grew to about $15,000 in less time.