Australian Banking and Finance Law and Regulation

The relationship between the bank and the customer gives rise to several duties on the part of the bank. The most important of these is the duty of confidence, also known as the ‘Tournier duty’. In addition, there are two duties implied into the banker–customer contract that are owed by the customer to the bank: the Macmillan duty, which is the duty to exercise reasonable care in drawing cheques so as not to facilitate fraud; and the Greenwood duty, which is the duty to notify the bank of any forgeries known to the customer. Neither of these duties is particularly onerous, and each gives rise only to estoppel, which the bank is able to set up to negate any claim for wrongful debiting of the account.