13.4 Types of crossings

 (a)    General crossing – indicated by drawing two transverse lines across the face of the cheque, thus, with or without the addition of words “& Co.” between the lines.

The effect of such a crossing is to make the cheque payable only to a collecting banker, i.e. it precludes the paying banker from paying cash for the cheque across the counter.

(b)   Special crossing – indicating the name of a particular banker, with or without the addition of two transverse lines.  The effect is that the paying banker must pay the cheque only to collecting banker named on the crossing, and to no other.

(c)    Not negotiable – A cheque crossed with these words is deprived it is negotiability, and it becomes an ordinary transferable chose in action, i.e. it can be assigned, but the assignee obtains no better title than was possessed by his assignor.

(d) Account payee (or Account payee only)

The crossing on a cheque with the words “account payee” or such similar words is not a statutory crossing but is a recognized and obeyed by banker’s custom.