A Study On The Legal Problems Of Electronic Fund Transfer In The Network Bank Business

Along with the rapid development of computer science and network technology,the efficiency of online transactions has been greatly increased in the past few years.The accumulated capital of online transactions also broke historic records, creatingunprecedented commercial opportunities for commercial banks in china. In order toreduce the costs of face-to-face transactions and gain more profits, commercial bankschose to launch the network bank business one after another. As the core componentof the network bank business, electronic fund transfer plays a more and moreimportant role in online transactions.Although the legal problems of electronic fund transfer in the network bankbusiness have been put emphasis on during the recent years, it is still hard for us toproperly resolve problems due to imperfections in relevant laws and regulations. Tobetter settle the legal problems of electronic fund transfer and share legal liabilitiesamong the involved parties, this dissertation firstly tries to figure out a legal definitionfor the act of electronic fund transfer. On that basis, this article carries on to analyzethe legal relations which exist in electronic fund transfer in the network bank business.Then, with a comparative analysis of the laws and regulations between America andChina, this article continues to do researches on how to share legal liabilities underseveral specific conditions, which include the condition that an unauthorizedelectronic fund transfer occurs in the network bank business, the condition that anunexpected and uncorrectable error occurs, and so on. Based on the nationalconditions of China, this dissertation makes some recommendations on the legislationat last. The full text includes introduction and four chapters and the main contents areas follows:The introduction is concerned with the background information of the electronicfund transfer. It points out that the rapid growth of electronic transactions and the lag in legislation led to the problems in electronic fund transfer. In order to find solutionsto the problems, the research is of great significance and comparative analysis isadopted as the major research method in this dissertation.Chapter1mainly focuses on the legal definition for the act of electronic fundtransfer. It also discusses the features and classifications of electronic fund transfer. Inthis article, electronic fund transfer (EFT) can be divided into two categories: closed-loop EFT and open-loop EFT.Based on the above classification, Chapter2makes a brief discussion of the legalrelations in closed-loop EFT and open-loop EFT, so as to establish the rights,liabilities, and responsibilities of the participants in different EFT systems.Chapter3deals with the legal problems concerning the EFT, such as theunauthorized EFT, the errors and transfer failures in EFT, the time when the act ofelectronic fund transfer begins and ends, the information disclosure and the privacyprotection of EFT, to name a few. Compared with the American laws and regulations,Chinese laws and regulations still have legal lacuna and demand immediateperfection. This chapter also provides several viable ways to solve the legal problemsmentioned above and puts forward a few tentative legislative proposals for reference.In accordance with the discussions in the previous chapters, Chapter4summarizesthe major defects in the present EFT legislation. It also makes recommendations onhow to improve and perfect the legal system of EFT in China.It should go without saying that the rapid development of computer science andnetwork technology will bring about new legal problems in the future. So it isobviously infeasible to frequently enact legislation according to the technicalinnovations. All we have to do now is to reserve enough room for the improvementand perfection of the EFT laws and leave as few legal lacuna as possible. Thisdissertation aims not only to solve the EFT problems under the present laws andregulations of China, but also to provide a framework for establishing the rights,liabilities, and responsibilities of the participants in electronic fund transfer as well asleaving enough space for the improvement and perfection of the EFT laws, so that thepassage of EFT legislation will go smoothly and orderly.