that the banker only secures protection so long as he is acting
strictly as a conduit pipe, or as agent for the customer. If he put himself
in the position of owner of the cheque, he no longer fulfils the condition
of receiving the money only for the customer. In the Gordon case, adoption
of the not uncommon practice of crediting cheques as cash in the bank's
books before the money was actually received was held equivalent to taking
them as transferee or owner, and to debar the bank from the protection of
sec. 82. The anxiety and inconvenience caused to bankers by this unexpected
decision was ultimately removed by the Bills of Exchange (Crossed Cheques)
Act 1906, which enacts that a banker receives payment of a crossed cheque
for a customer within the meaning of sec. 82 of the Bills of Exchange Act
1882, notwithstanding that he credits his customer's account with the
amount of the cheque before receiving payment thereof. Apparently the scope
of this act must be confined to its immediate object, and it does not
affect the relations and rights between the banker and his customer or
parties to the cheque arising from such crediting as cash. For instance,
the customer, in the absence of agreement to the contrary, may at once draw
against cheques so credited, while the banker may still debit the customer
with the amount of the cheque if returned unpaid, or sue the drawer or
indorser thereon.

The protection to the collecting banker is in no way affected by the cheque
being crossed "not negotiable," or by the nature of the fraud or crime by
which the cheque was obtained by the customer or any previous possessor,
although there are dicta which have been interpreted in the contrary sense.
Nor does the fact that the customer is overdrawn deprive the banker of the
character of a collecting agent, unless the cheque be definitely given and
taken in reduction of such overdraft. Where the conditions requisite for
protection exist, the protection covers not only the receipt of the money,
but all operations usual in business and leading up to such receipt, on the
basis of the customer's title being unimpeachable. The provisions of the
crossed cheques sections of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 are extended to
dividend warrants by sec. 95 of that act, and to certain orders for payment
issued by a customer of a banker by sec. 17 of the Revenue Act 1883, as
before stated. But the wording of the Bills of Exchange (Crossed Cheques)
Act 1906, s