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A judge has ordered a leading high street bank not to issue any more penalty charges to a customer who is seeking to have the fees refunded.

Barclays bank was told to stop applying the charges until a wider legal dispute concerning unauthorised overdraft fees issued by Britain's major lenders is settled by a test case at the high court.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) announced last month that it had decided to ask the country's most senior judges to examine the issue after the courts and regulators received "tens of thousands" of complaints about the penalty charges, which are imposed when account holders go overdrawn without authorisation from their bank.

Analysts claim that the outcome of the latest individual hearing at Luton county court is likely to cause concern for the country's largest banks, amid fears that other judges may also order them to waiver penalty fees against individual customers until the test case is concluded.

While the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has opted not to accept further complaints from consumers over the fees until the benchmark case is decided, local judges must continue to rule on individual cases that come before them in the meantime.

Responding to the outcome of the latest consumer case, Barclays stressed that under the ruling it could still be entitled to reclaim any further charges from customer Nadine Fry if the high court rules in favour of the high street banks.

"Although in this particular case the order was made not to make further charges, the district judge also warned the claimant at the hearing that, should she exceed the authorised overdraft or have a cheque bounce during the stay, Barclays will be entitled to reclaim the charges at the end of the stay should the test case be successful," the bank said in a statement.

Britain's main banks have repaid millions of pounds in overdraft charges to customers since the start of the year, with Barclays alone having returned £87 million to customers who have disputed the fees.

The OFT has said that the test case it has instigated over the fees will "assist in securing a clear and orderly resolution of the fairness of these charges".

Set to begin in January 2008, the landmark case will take place alongside an ongoing OFT study into wider competition concerns regarding the operation of current accounts.