Banker’s Duty of Confidentiality to the Customer :
Mrs. J lived with her husband, Mr. C, who had occasionally been violent towards her throughout their married life. After he lost his job and started drinking heavily, the violence became so much more frequent and more damaging that Mrs. J felt that she was in serious danger.
One night when Mr. C was out, Mrs J left home and moved into a rented flat.
First thing in the following morning, she went to her bank to change the address on her accounts. She explained why she had moved, and said that under no circumstances should the bank tell Mr. C where she now lived.
The bank changed the address on all of Mrs J’s accounts but, by accident, it also changed the address on the joint account she held with Mr. C. This was because the bank had “linked” the accounts for the members of the household on its computer system (which is a common practice these days), but had unfortunately not removed the link before making the address change.
A few weeks later, Mr. C went to the bank to ask for a loan. While the member of staff was getting his details up on the computer screen, Mr. C saw that the joint account had a different address. Realizing that, that was probably where Mrs J had moved to, Mr. C went round there, broke down the front door, and severely assaulted Mrs J.
Mrs. J was in hospital for several days. She was very badly bruised and had suffered some internal injuries.
Some weeks later, after Mrs J had recovered sufficiently, she complained to the bank about what it had done. It wouldn’t at first accept that it had done anything wrong. But it soon became clear that the facts were not in dispute. It had been responsible for letting Mr. C find out Mrs J’s new address. It apologized, and offered her Rs.30,000. But Mrs J did not think this was adequate compensation, so she came to the Redressal Authority.