Module Directory

This module deals with the bank–customer relationship and banking regulation and supervision. The first part focuses on understanding the essence of banking business and the key notions of a bank and the customer as well as their main rights and duties in the banker-customer relationship.

The second part delves into the role of banks as important economic and social institutions and explores their regulation and supervision in a domestic and EU context. The module adopts a dynamic and pragmatic approach that balances legal policy with rules and principles in statutes, cases, and other sources of law with examples of banking law in practice.

The aims of this module are:

• To introduce banks, banking law and the business of banking


• To give students detailed knowledge about the institutions involved in banking regulation and supervision in the United Kingdom and the European Union


• To introduce the key banking transactions and their legal implications


• To enable students to appreciate the political, social and economic forces underlying the dynamism and evolution of the financial industry and attempts to regulate the resulting processes and supervise the relevant institutions


• To equip students with the analytical tools for analysing domestic banking transactions and applying the relevant law to scenarios drawn from real-life situations.

By the end of the module, students will be expected to be able to:

1. Describe key aspects of the UK banks’ legal regulation and supervision, and of the bank-customer relationship.


2. Systematically explain the structure and operations of the institutions involved in UK banking regulation and supervision.


3. Assess the success of recent banking reforms.


4. Demonstrate an understanding of key banking transactions and their legal implications.


5. Formulate an informed position on pertinent legal issues and practical situations, and compose appropriate solutions to these issues.


6. Communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions concerning banking regulation and the bank-customer relationship to both specialist and non-specialist audiences.

This module does not assume any prior knowledge of banking practice, but it does expect that you will quickly develop a keen interest and curiosity in financial institutions and markets.

The module is designed to be interactive, allowing students to engage in discussions with their peers and the lecturer concerning recent developments (e.g. Brexit, digital innovation in financial services) and the effect of these developments on the banking sector. This module will be co-taught with LW224 – 7 – Banking Law, which is offered to LLM students.

Key Themes

• Introduction to banks and banking services


• Discovering the 'business of banking'


• UK Banking Regulation and Supervision


• EU Banking Regulation and Supervision


• Introduction to bank-customer relations


• The regulation of plastic money


• Bank's transactional liability


• Bank as constructive trustee


• The Bank's obligations: Anti-Money Laundering legislation


• The Bank's obligations: Duty of confidentiality

This module will be delivered via weekly lectures.

Each week, the module teaching team will first produce and make available on Moodle two 25-minute pre-recorded video lectures. The module teaching team will then deliver a weekly live 50-minute lecture in which they further explore key legal concepts and answer your questions about the topics. These lectures will subsequently be available online through Moodle so that you can re-watch them as part of your independent study. Alongside this, there will be five bi-weekly 50-minute small group tutorials.

The module teaching team will also produce and make available on Moodle short guidance notes. These notes will introduce both the material to be covered in lectures and the readings that must be completed in advance of each tutorial. The notes will also contain tips designed both to help you navigate the material to be covered in the lectures and to analyse set readings. 

You will be expected to have completed the required readings in advance of your tutorials. Your tutorials will enable you to discuss both the material covered in lectures and the required readings, obtain feedback on your pre-class preparation, and deepen your understanding of key concepts.

To help you prepare in the best possible way for your tutorials, you will be completing regular Multiple-Choice Quizzes on Moodle. The quizzes will be based on the reading set for that week so that the quiz forms part of your preparation for each tutorial. The quizzes will enable you to track your progress, understand what you are doing well, and give you clear feedback to help you manage your studies and your progress.