Easy Bank Account Switching

Easy Bank Account Switching.

The Banking Payments Council has confirmed that the easy bank current account switching service will go live on 16 September 2013.  Exactly 1 month from today.

In the past, we have all been fearful of switching current accounts as the process can take over a month, with much pain as we wrestle with missed and changed direct debits and standing orders.

The new service, of which all the major 17 banks have signed up to will mean that your current account and all debits/credits and standing orders will be live within 7 working days.

Why is this happening?

Competition.  An independent banking review found that most people only change bank current accounts once every 26 years.  In short, you can go through your working life having never changed accounts.

Banking competition is key to reducing charges and bring more incentives into the banking industry to encourage us to save and look after our money.

Comment
Do we really think a bank will smoothly switch your account in just 7 days.  No.  Only if the system is truly automated.  It recently took this website 3 months to open some corporate bank accounts with a leading band brand.  If they cannot open them, we suspect switching will have problems too.

That said, competition is good for us all.  It will also mean that banks will have to improve their service proposition to retain clients and attract new clients.