Bank Deposit Contract in Contemporery Banking Law: Compartative Law Prospect

Abstract

Vishnevskiy Alexander - Professor, Deapartment of Entrepreneurial Law, Faculty of Law, National Research University Higher School of Economics, PhD (Law). E-mail: aavishnevsky@gmail.com
Address: National Research University — Higher School of Economics, 20, Myasnitskaya str., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation.

The subject matter of the publication is models of regulating bank deposit in various legal systems. To study the models four countries have been chosen: Russia, the UK, France and Italy. The sources studied are cases, norms of codes, international law acts, research of Russian and foreign experts. The author determines the area of bank operations as an element of common contract law within civil law. The author notes the differentiation of legal regulation of the transactions in particular their inflexibility in France and their laconic nature in Italy. British legal regulation is seen characterized with the fact that the relations between the bank and client are  similar to those between the debtor and the creditor and under case law the role of debtor is given to the bank. British practice does not know the term bank deposit. It applies interest-bearing account. Saving books are rare in the British legal practice. France prefers regulating most questions relating to bank deposits by legislative acts and codifications (codes of a certain area of law). France applies a complex classification of bank deposits: 1) regular accounts, 2) people’s accounts (for people with low income), 3) for minors under 12 years of age, 4) accounts to acquire real estate. According to the author’s observations, the Russian Federation practices the regulation of bank deposits close to the balanced one. Russian legislation considers bank deposit agreement as belonging to public law but not private law and applies stricter requirements to the banks offering deposit accounts for individuals. Under the RF Civil code, the bank may not deny to conclude a deposit agreement. The law protects the right of the depositor to alter the previous decision and despite the freedom of contract p principle to restrict the right of the bank to modify the terms of the agreement arbitrarily. The author arriives at a conclusion that the further regulation of bank deposits will probably follow the way of minimizing risks of rather economic than legal nature.