Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971

1 Bank holidays.

(1) Subject to subsection (2) below, the days specified in Schedule 1 to this Act shall be bank holidays in England and Wales, in Scotland and in Northern Ireland as indicated in the Schedule.

(2) If it appears to Her Majesty that, in the special circumstances of any year, it is inexpedient that a day specified in Schedule 1 to this Act should be a bank holiday, Her Majesty may by proclamation declare that that day shall not in that year be a bank holiday and appoint another day in place of it; and the day appointed by the proclamation shall, in that year, be a bank holiday under this Act instead of the day specified in Schedule 1.

(3) Her Majesty may from time to time by proclamation appoint a special day to be, either throughout the United Kingdom or in any place or locality in the United Kingdom, a bank holiday under this Act.

(4) No person shall be compellable to make any payment or to do any act on a bank holiday under this Act which he would not be compellable to make or do on Christmas Day or Good Friday; and where a person would, apart from this subsection, be compellable to make any payment or to do any act on a bank holiday under this Act, his obligation to make the payment or to do the act shall be deemed to be complied with if he makes or does it on the next following day on which he is compellable to make or do it.

(5) The powers conferred on Her Majesty by subsections (2) and (3) above may, as respects Northern Ireland, be exercised by the Governor of Northern Ireland.

(6) The provision made by this section for January 2nd or 3rd to be a bank holiday in Scotland shall have effect for the year 1973 and subsequent years.

2 Power to suspend financial dealings.

(1) If it appears to the Treasury necessary or expedient so to do in the national interest, they may by order (made by statutory instrument, which shall be laid before Parliament after being made) give, with respect to a day specified in the order, all or any of the following directions, namely:—

(a ) a direction that, subject to any exceptions for which provision may be made by the order, no person carrying on the business of a banker shall, except with permission granted by or on behalf of the Treasury, effect on that day, in the course of that business, any transaction or, according as may be specified in the order, a transaction of such kind as may be so specified;

(b ) a direction that, subject as aforesaid, no authorised dealer in foreign currency shall, on that day, except with permission so granted, deal in any foreign currency or, according as may be specified in the order, foreign currency of such kind as may be so specified;

(c ) a direction that, subject as aforesaid, no authorised dealer in gold shall on that day, except with permission so granted, deal in any gold;

(d ) a direction that, subject as aforesaid, no person shall on that day, except with permission so granted, deal in silver bullion;

(e ) a direction that, subject as aforesaid, no member of any commodity exchange or, as the case may be, of any such commodity exchange as may be specified in the order, shall, on that day, except with permission so granted, deal thereon in futures in any commodity or, according as may be so specified, in futures in a commodity of such kind as may be so specified;

(f ) a direction that the Post Office shall, on that day, suspend the operation of any banking service provided by it in exercise of the power conferred on it by section 7(1)(b ) of the ^{Post Office Act 1969} ; and

(g ) a direction that no member of a stock exchange in the United Kingdom shall, on that day, effect any transaction on that exchange.

(2) Subsection (1)(a ) above shall not authorise the giving of directions to a person carrying on the business of a savings bank in respect of that business, nor to the Post Office in respect of any business carried on in exercise of the power conferred on it by section 7(1)(b ) of the Post Office Act 1969 .

(3) An obligation on a person to do a thing on a day on which he is prevented from doing it by an order under this section, or is unable to do it by reason of any such order, shall be deemed to be complied with if he does it so soon as practicable thereafter.

(4) A person who knowingly or recklessly contravenes a direction given by an order under subsection (1) of this section shall be guilty of an offence and liable—

(a ) on summary conviction, to a fine of not more than 400;

(b ) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for not more than two years or to a fine or to both.

(5) Where an offence under this section which has been committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or any person who was purporting to act in any such capacity he, as well as the body corporate, shall be guilty of that offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against accordingly.

Where the affairs of a body corporate are managed by its members, this subsection shall apply in relation to the acts and defaults of a member in connection with his functions of management as if he were a director of the body corporate.

(6) In this section—

‘authorised dealer in foreign currency’ means a person for the time being authorised by an order of the Treasury to act for the purposes of the Exchange Control Act 1947 as an authorised dealer in relation to any foreign currency;

‘authorised dealer in gold’ means a person for the time being authorised by an order of the Treasury to act for those purposes as an authorised dealer in relation to gold;

‘commodity exchange’ means an association established in the United Kingdom for the purpose of facilitating dealings by the members thereof in a commodity; and

‘foreign currency’ and ‘gold’ have the same meanings respectively as they have in the Exchange Control Act 1947 .

3 Bills of exchange and promissory notes.

(1) Section 92 of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 (which, in a ease in which the time limited by that Act for doing any act or thing is less than three days, excludes non-business days from the reckoning of that time, and defines such days for the purposes of the Act) shall have effect as if, in paragraph (a ) of the definition of non-business days, ‘Saturday’ were inserted immediately before ‘Sunday’.

This subsection shall not operate to extend any period expiring at or before the time it comes into force.

(2) For section 14(1) of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 (under or by virtue of which the date of maturity of a bill or promissory note that does not say otherwise is arrived at by adding three days of grace to the time of payment as fixed by the bill or note, but is advanced or postponed if the last day of grace is a nonbusiness day) there shall be substituted, except in its application to bills drawn and notes made before this subsection comes into force, the following paragraph—

(1) The bill is due and payable in all cases on the last day of the time of payment as fixed by the bill or, if that is a non-business day, on the succeeding business day.’

(3) This section shall come into force at the expiration of one month beginning with the date on which this Act is passed.

4 Consequential and supplementary.

(1) Except as otherwise provided by this Act, in any enactment or instrument passed or made before the coming into force of this section (including an enactment of the Parliament of Northern Ireland or instrument having effect under such an...