UK Competition and Markets Authority Final Report on Retail Banking Market Investigation 

The UK Competition and Markets Authority published its final report on its market investigation into the supply of retail banking services to personal current account customers and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK. The report outlines its findings and a proposed package of remedies. The CMA aims to implement all elements of the package by the end of September 2018.  

The CMA found that the combination of low customer engagement, barriers to searching and switching and incumbency advantages in the provision of current accounts is leading to an adverse effect on competition. The CMA also found that the combination of barriers to searching, strong product linkages, the nature of demand for SME lending products, information asymmetries and incumbency advantages in the provision of SME lending is leading to an adverse effect on competition.

Building on such findings, the CMA has introduced an integrated package of remedies. This involves three foundation measures, which aim to increase customer engagement and make it easier for customers to compare the prices and service quality of different providers by requiring banks to: (i) introduce Open Banking, a single digital application that allows customers to manage their accounts with multiple providers; (ii) provide information on service quality; and (iii) send out suitable periodic and event-based customer prompts, which will encourage customers to review the services being provided. Additionally, the CMA has introduced separate measures to improve the current account switching process, help overdraft users and assist SMEs in comparing different providers.

View the final report.

View an overview of the findings and proposed remedies.