Depositing the money in a bank or postal current account means transferring it to the bank or post office. Here is what the Civil Code states.
It seems absurd but it is the reality. Once you have deposited the money into your current account they are no longer ours. Ownership passes to the credit institution or to the Italian Post Office, depending on where we opened the account. This is what the Civil Code affirms even if few people are aware of it. In fact, each of us is convinced that depositing savings in a current account is the best solution for protect money that painstakingly accumulates every month. Yet, from the moment of payment, that money no longer belongs to us.
What the Civil Code states, article 1834
Article 1834 of the Civil Code certifies that the credit institution takes possession of the money paid by the account holder but has the obligation to return it. The exact words are “When depositing a sum of money with a bank, the bank acquires ownership of it and is obliged to return it in the same monetary species“.
The bank or the post office, therefore, become the owners of the money for a specific time frame. This refers to the period between the payment and the expiry of the contract or the moment in which the account holder requests his / her money. Even in the event of a foreign currency payment, the credit institution must proceed with the return in the same currency.
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The bank failure bail-in authorizes access to the checking account
The obligation to return the money is certainly news that makes you breathe a sigh of relief. However, it is necessary to know that the European Union in the Directive number 2014/59 has made it clear that in the event of a risk of bankruptcy, the bank has the ability to draw on the money of savers and all internal resources available.
The procedure in question is called bail-in, saving from the inside, and is authorized only if the amount present in the current account of the customer, shareholder or creditor is greater than 100 thousand euros.
Small savers can, therefore, sleep peacefully and banish the idea of keeping your money under the mattress as was the practice several years ago.
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