Template:Combination of accounts capsule
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The banker’s right to combine accounts arises where a customer has multiple bank accounts, usually where some are in debit and some in credit. This stands to reason, obviously — unless there are multiple accounts, all overdrawn, but onely some of them benefit from a security interest. It is sometimes called a Banker’s set-off but, in 1972’s (still leading) case National Westminster Bank Ltd v Halesowen, Lord Buckley noted it isn’t a set off right so much as a function of accounting:
- “Nor is it a set-off situation, which postulates mutual but independent obligations between the two parties. It is an accounting situation, in which the existence and amount of one party’s liability to the other can only be ascertained by discovering the ultimate balance of their mutual dealing.”
Combination of accounts is arguably available in any situation where one party has multiple accounts with another in one currency. Some questions arise when they are in different currencies.[1]
- ↑ See also Fearns v Anglo-Dutch Paint and Chemical Company Limited [2010] EWHC 2366.