Study On Personal Joint Accounts

Personal joint accounts are personal savings accounts of a special form, have been abroad for several decades, but a new type of account in our country. Personal joint accounts have shown a trend to flourish in our country. But until now, our country did not have laws and regulations to manage personal joint accounts. Personal joint accounts in our country are short of the concrete legal basis, called"the water without a source". Commercial bank is short of legal guidelines when carrying out joint accounts, increasing the Commercial bank's and depositor's risk imperceptibly, and hindering joint accounts' service development in our country. This article attempts to study the legal issues related personal joint accounts on the basis of comparative law, through a combination of the theory and practice.This article is divided into four parts. Part I is general principles, primarily to define the personal joint accounts; Part II to Part IV are sub-part, where the author will carry on legal analysis with several hot and difficult issues about personal joint accounts, and put forward own views and perceptions.Part I is an overview of personal joint accounts, concluding the definitions, characteristics, as well as classification about personal joint accounts.Part II is related to issues of ownership, control and entitlement about personal joint accounts.Part III discusses a bank's right to setoff against joint accounts, concluding a bank's contractual right to setoff and a bank's statutory right to setoff.Part IV is about levying on joint accounts.