drawer
Drawer is the person who writes and signs a cheque, telling their bank to pay a stated amount to someone else from their account.
In plain English
A lot of people write a cheque, hand it over with a glad flourish, and forget about it completely, as if the story ends the moment the paper leaves their hand.
Then three days later they are shocked, genuinely shocked, when the cheque bounces because the account had ₦12,000 when the cheque was for ₦150,000.
That person is the drawer, and the drawer's most basic job, before anything else, is to make sure the money is actually sitting there waiting when the cheque arrives at the bank.
Think of Uche, who runs a small event decoration business in Enugu and writes her supplier a cheque for ₦280,000 on a Friday, fully intending to deposit that amount on Monday before it clears.
Uche is the drawer here. She owns the account, she signed the cheque, and she is the one legally on the hook if that cheque bounces and damages her supplier's trust or her own record with the bank.
In the United Kingdom, cheques are used less now, but the same word shows up whenever someone writes one, say paying a landlord's deposit, and the drawer is still the account holder whose signature makes the instruction valid.
For Nigerians abroad sending cheques home to family, it helps to remember that being the drawer means the responsibility does not end at posting the cheque. It ends when the money actually clears.
Tunde writes a cheque for ₦95,000 to pay his tailor. Tunde is the drawer, his bank is the drawee, and the tailor is the payee who will present the cheque for payment.
Questions people ask
Is the drawer the same as the account holder?
Usually yes. The drawer is whoever owns the account and signs the cheque, instructing the bank to pay out from their funds.
What happens if a drawer's cheque bounces?
The bank returns it unpaid, the drawer may face fees, and repeated bounced cheques can damage their standing with that bank and with people who no longer trust their cheques.
Can a company be a drawer, more than a person?
Yes. A business account can be the drawer, with an authorised signatory signing on the company's behalf rather than for themselves personally.
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