Butterworths Banking Law Guide

Banking and finance law plays an important role in practice.  Butterworths Banking Law Guide, edited by Mark Howard QC & Roger Masefield, aims to provide a succinct summary of English banking law.  To my mind, it easily achieves this aim although I would certainly welcome an updated version following the substantial changes since publication.

Edited by two experienced banking law barristers together with a team of experienced authors, Butterworths Banking Law Guide is separated into the main areas of retail banking, namely bank regulation, banks, customers and third parties, payment and payment systems, the bank as lender, the regulation of consumer credit, trade finance and the law relating to internet banking.  To succinctly cover all of these areas is an ambitious aim but the contributors’ expertise, combined with the accessible writing style, means this aim is achieved making it an important text for retail banking lawyers.

Butterworths Banking Law Guide is impressively written: each chapter is sub-divided into a number of small and manageable section with (where relevant) detailed footnotes.  Because of my particular interest in consumer credit, I was pleased by the contributors’ coverage on this area of law.  I would have, however, like a little more coverage of important banking issues like prescribed terms and prescribed information and the Court’s power to make an enforcement order.  Instead, the reader is referred to specialist texts.

For many banking lawyers, Butterworths Banking Law Guide should be a text which remains close to hand.  More experienced lawyers may, however, prefer to tackle more specialised texts.  That said, lawyers looking for a succinct overview of the law, its application and its principles should look no further than Butterworths Banking Law Guide which is likely to become a favourite for years to come.

Reviewed on 5 April 2009