Lesson 12

Banks and their customers

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 drawing a cheque in favour of another person.
当任何人开设银行活期账户时，他实际上是在借钱给银行，并有权随时要求偿还，既可以通过现金提取，也可以通过开具支票支付给他人。
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 overdrawn.
首先，银行与客户的关系是债务人和债权人的关系——谁是哪一方取决于客户的账户是有存款还是透支。
But, in addition to that basically simple concept, the bank and its customer owe a large number of obligations to one another.
但是，除了那个基本的简单概念之外，银行及其客户彼此之间还负有大量的义务。
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.
这些义务中的许多可能会引起问题和复杂情况，但银行客户与商品买家不同，不能抱怨法律对他不利。
The bank must obey its customer's instructions, and not those of anyone else.
银行必须遵守其客户的指令，而不是其他任何人的。
When, for example, a customer first opens an account, he instructs the bank to debit his account only in respect of cheques drawn by himself.
例如，当一位客户首次开设账户时，他会指示银行仅扣除由他本人签发的支票。
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's signature has been forged.
他向银行提供了他的签名样本，并且有一条非常严格的规定：银行无权或无授权在客户签名被伪造的支票上支付客户的钱。
It makes no difference that the forgery may have been a very skilful one: the bank must recognize its customer's signature.
伪造品是否非常精巧并不重要：银行必须识别其客户的签名。
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.
由于这个原因，银行采用的在支票上打印客户姓名的做法对客户而言不存在风险。
If this facilitates forgery, it is the bank which will lose, not the customer.
如果这促进了伪造，那么损失的是银行，而不是客户。