任何人在银行开立活期账户时，实际上是在把钱借给银行，而这笔钱的偿还，他可以随时要求——或以现金形式，或通过开具一张以他人为受益人的支票。
When anyone opens a current account at a bank, he is lending the bank money, repayment of which he may demand at any time either in cash or by drawing a cheque in favour of another person.
从根本上说，银行-客户关系是一种债务人与债权人的关系——谁是哪一方，则取决于客户账户是有余额还是处于透支状态。
Primarily, the banker-customer relationship is that of debtor and creditor — who is which depending on whether the customer's account is in credit or is overdrawn.
但是，除了这个基本上简单的概念之外，银行与其客户还相互负有大量义务。
But, in addition to that basically simple concept, the bank and its customer owe a large number of obligations to one another.
这些义务中有许多可能引发问题和纠纷，但银行客户——不像，比如说，一个商品购买者——不能抱怨法律对他不公平。
Many of these obligations can give rise to problems and complications but a bank customer, unlike, say, a buyer of goods, cannot complain that the law is loaded against him.
银行必须服从其客户的指令，而不是其他任何人的指令。
The bank must obey its customer's instructions, and not those of anyone else.
例如，当客户首次开户时，他指示银行仅就他本人所开具的支票对其账户进行借记（划款）。
When, for example, a customer first opens an account, he instructs the bank to debit his account only in respect of cheques drawn by himself.
他向银行提供签名样本，且有一条极为明确的规定：银行无权也无权限，就一张其客户签名已遭伪造的支票向外支付客户的款项。
He gives the bank specimens of his signature, and there is a very firm rule that the bank has no right or authority to pay out a customer's money on a cheque on which its customer's signature has been forged.
伪造技术有多高超，并不影响这一结论：银行必须能够辨认其客户的签名。
It makes no difference that the forgery may have been a very skillful one: the bank must recognize its customer's signature.
正是由于这个原因，银行在支票上印上客户姓名的这一做法，对客户而言毫无风险。
For this reason there is no risk to the customer in the practice, adopted by banks, of printing the customer's name on his cheques.
如果这（印名字的做法）便利了伪造行为，蒙受损失的将是银行，而不是客户。
If this facilitates forgery, it is the bank which will lose, not the customer.