預金債權의 消滅時效에 관한 小考

Abstract

Until now, legal character, starting point of the extinctive prescription and application of good faith rule as specific matters of the extinctive prescription which can arise from extinctive prescription were understood. Further, this study aims to suggest to matters which can arise from the extinctive prescription as followings. It is fully understood that application of the extinctive prescription can’t be denied as long as ownerships of funds are transferred to banks by deposit agreements and maintenance of dormant accounts which have not made any transactions is burdensome in banks’ positions as they require cumbersome processes such as arraignment of ledgers, keeping, interest calculations etc. But 5 to 10 years extinctive prescription is unreasonable in some respects and there is need to exclude application of extinctive prescription to deposits which were confirmed of balances by a special legislation and to establish about 20 years’ period of prescription in that general bank depositors who expect public confidence and definite custody of funds are presuming continuous existence of deposit relationships for a naturally reasonable time, especially a long time in some cases. And invocation of extinctive prescription to deposit recapture claim should be allowed in case verification of legitimate extinction is difficult such as the existence itself of deposit credit repayment, matters related with reversion of credit and etc. Accordingly, purposes, roles and legitimacy for attaining in accordance with exercising period of deposit recapture claim were examined by classification and an attempt of reducing depositors who are unrighteously divested of the rights as far as possible is suggested even though the prescription system is for protecting debtors in principle by restricting adjustment by starting points and by the good faith principle as grounds for restricting extinctive prescription. In this context, the extinctive prescription system for deposit recapture rights of deposit credits should be strictly applied by the reasons that it can damage the balance of socioeconomic reward relationship which lies in the base of business relationships and cause conflicts with justice concepts and moral commonsense of general public. Banks are likely to be effective in a deposit maintenance policy by placing the provision that the extinctive prescription of depositary credit is excluded in bank policies of deposit agreements and depositary creditors might enter into deposit agreements and make deposits without any concern of extinctive prescription of deposits. But banks might reduce management costs of small accounts out of dormant accounts by establishing a clause that dormant accounts less than a certain amount can be applied of extinctive prescription in provisory clauses of bank policies.