Banks and Fiduciary Responsibilities the Law and Practice in Uganda

ABSTRACT

This study "Banks and Fiduciary Responsibilities, The Law and Practice' was caiTied out in different banks in Kampala district, with specific aims of establishing the circumstances that bring about fiduciary arrangements and the legal issues taken into consideration to decide these responsibilities; finding out the different forms of fiduciary responsibilities, examining the circumstances that can lead to breach of fiduciary relationships through an analysis of the loopholes in the law governing fiduciary responsibilities in order to identify possible interventions to control breach of fiduciary responsibilities in banks. To comprehend this, the study reviewed literature from various scholars on the specific aims as well as different laws from different countries that govern fiduciary relationships in banks. This was done through use of a qualitative design in which the researcher concentrated on use of interviews as the research instrument administered on a sample of 50 respondents who were randomly selected. The study findings indicated that, the different forms of fiduciary included; protection of trust, accountability, and circumstances leading to breach of fiduciary were identified as failure to protect a trust, secret commissions and bribes, misleading advice, undue influences, conflict of duties and interest among others whereas these problems can be avoided by bank carefully stating and explaining the position of bank to businessman what their rights and liabilities in the transaction are before any unde1iaking. The study concluded that, fiduciary issues are determined purposely to bring equity, but courts have increasingly recognized bank failure in their roles to serve as fiduciary without conflicting in interest leading to low levels of non performing loan, but government has embai·ked on strengthening of the system to upgrade the legal and regulatory framework of the banking system. The study recommended that laws are too ineffective and need adjustment and new paradigm, and that bank officers need to be observant of the rules and regulations to adopt good practices which should be done hand in hand with a dynamic monitoring of bank officers on procedure taken in advising on fiduciary issues.