When anyone opens a current account at a bank, he is lending the bank money, repayment of
which he may demand at any time, either in cash or by deawing a cheque in favour of another
person. Primarily, the banker-customer relationship is that of debtor and creditor-who is
which depending on whether the customer's account is in credit or is overfrawn.But, in additon
to that basically simple concept, the bank and its customer owe a large number of obligations
to one another. Many of these obligations can give rise to problems and complications but a
bank customer, unlike, say, a buyer of goods, cannot complain that the law is loaded against
him.
The bank must obey its cutomer's instructions, and not those of anyone else. When, for example,
a customer first opens an acount, he instructs the bank to debit his account only in respect
of cheques drawn by himself. He gives the bank specimens of his signature, and there is a
very firm rule that the bank has no right or authority to pay out a customer's money on a cheque
on which its customer'sdignature has been forged. It makes no difference that the forgery may
have been a very skilful one: the bank must recognize its customer's signature. For this
reason there is no risk to the customer in the practice, adopted by banks, of printing the
customer's name on his cheques. If this facilitates forgery, it is the bank which will lose,
not the customer.