Banking and Finance Law
Are Customers Rights Really Protected?
For many of us, dealing with our banks is a daily occurance. With today's technology, most of us use money access machines and online banking as comfortably as we use our television sets our automobiles. But is our money truly protected? Most of us would say, without a doubt, that it was protected. In fact, most of us have not had major problems when it comes to dealing with our accounts. But, how does the undue influence that our financial institutions have over us shape how we invest our money? In 1996, a woman in London was awarded nearly 80,000 pounds after she and her boyfriend were given bad advice on a property deal by Lloyds Bank. ("Lloyds' Blunder Cost Woman Pounds 10,000 Pay") This is just one story in a string of stories of how banks use their influence to sway our money making decisions in their favor. So how safe is the banking system really and are the laws that govern these insitutions enough to protect most consumers who utilize the banking system today?. Before we take a closer look, let's discuss the history of banking.
Banking is fundamentally the business of dealing in money and instruments of credit. In the past, banks were divergent from other financial institutions by their principal functions of accepting deposits (subject to withdrawal or transfer by check)...
Banks have commonly been catogorized according to their main services. The main categories are commercial banks, (which include national and state-chartered banks), trust companies, stock savings banks, and industrial banks, have traditionally rendered a wide range of services in addition to their primary functions of making loans and investments and handling demand as well as savings and other time deposits. Mutual savings banks accepted only savings and other time deposits, and sold limited types of loans and services. The reality that commercial banks were able to extend or shrink their loans and investments in conformity with changes in reserves and reserve stipulations made them even more distinct from mutual savings banks, where the volume of loans and investments was governed by changes in customers' deposits. Membership in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is mandatory for all Federal Reserve member banks but discretionary for other banks. (Blinder)
The types of financial establishments that have not commonly been dependent on the supervision of state or federal banking controls but have performed one or more of the conventional banking functions are savings and loan associations, mortgage companies, finance companies, insurance companies, credit agencies (owned wholly or in part by the federal…
