This article is a section of a doctoral thesis recently presented on “The Juridical Nature of the Bank-Depositor Relationship”. Its object was to determine the legal nature of general deposits of money in a bank account.
After discussing the various explanations in the context of some of the main Civil law systems (those of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal) the Common Law systems (England, U.S.A.) and under Israeli law, the author reached the conclusion that a bank deposit is not a deposit stricto sensu, being neither an irregular deposit nor a loan, nor even a combination of both, but rather a contract sui generis. In his opinion, the depositor, having placed his money in the bank still retains ownership of the fund: the bank acquires possession and may dispose of the customer's money, thus showing part ownership. In other words, a deposit in a bank implies a contractual fragmentation of the depositor's ownership between the customer and the bank. As a result thereof both parties maintain converging real rights in the fund, thus giving rise to a peculiar real relationship.