Banking in France - Fraudulent Transactions
7th July 2025
A recent court case tested the obligation on banks to refund an unauthorised bank transaction.
French law protects bank account holders in the event of unauthorised payments.
A bank is presumed to be liable unless it proves that:
the transaction in question has been authenticated, duly recorded and accounted for and,
it has not been affected by a technical or other deficiency.
Otherwise, it must reimburse their customer, even if they have, for example, recklessly clicked on a fraudulent link.
In a recent decision the Cour de Cassation recalled that the bank could not exempt itself from its liability without proving that the disputed payment met the above-mentioned criteria.
In this case, a customer had been the victim of phishing by e-mail. He had clicked on a suspicious link that had allowed a third party to add a new beneficiary via his personal space and to divert the funds.
The Court recalled that, without proof of a valid operation and without technical flaws, the bank was liable and must repay the sums debited fraudulently, even in the event of gross negligence on the part of the customer. In this case, the e-mail in question contained easily detectable inconsistencies, and followed a first attempt at fraud, which the bank had already informed the client.
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