5.2 The Duty of Secrecy and its Exceptions

The duty's foundation: the customer's affaires — the banker's confidentiality (the account's knowledge the bank's trust: the balances, the transactions, the securities, the identity's faces — the implied term's law (the relationship's confidence)). The duty's scope: all the customer's information acquired in the banking relation; the continuing obligation (the ex-customer too — the secrecy survives the account). The exceptions (the exam's classic list): (1) the law's compulsion (the court's order, the statute's disclosure duties (the AML/CTPA regime — the suspicious transactions' reporting; the tax laws' information)); (2) the customer's consent (the express-or-implied permission — the reference's craft (the credit-enquiry)); (3) the bank's own protection (the litigation's defence (the banker's suit on the account — the disclosure necessary for the claim)); (4) the public interest's faces (the duty-to-the-public (the serious-crime-and- national-security's debates — the modern AML the statutory face of this exception)); (5) the public's knowledge (the publicly-available information — no secrecy in the open); (6) the banker's business' disclosure among themselves (the ordinary-course faces — the reference- and-collection exchanges (the qualified cases)); (7) the guarantor's information (the surety's right to the principal's account state (the guarantee's disclosure — the surety's protection)). The breach's liability: the customer's damages (the confidential information's misuse); the injunction's remedy (the threatened disclosure's bar). Exam Focus Long questions: (i) The duty to pay cheque (the conditions…