Hello from France ! It is the same in France, it changed 18months ago, seee my previous post : http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/243341/1/France-no-more-local-bank-accounts-for-congregations
I still do not have all details on this new accounting system, I asked some questions but it was not well perceived... I think it is like TheDog1 explained.
Since that, what is strange is that we only know how much cash is given in the boxes. We have no idea of how much is given by checks (very common in France), because it is automatically sent to the national account.
But we still sometimes receive a letter of thanks from the branch, and in my congregation, the offerings dropped a lot since this new process !
I think we will have a special talk very soon...