Personal banking - current accounts

The House of Lords hearing on bank charges ran from 23 to 25 June 2009. To find out the background of the case, view questions and answers on our personal current account work.

There is widespread concern about whether current accounts provide value for the UK consumer, and in particular whether unauthorised overdraft charges and returned item fees are fair.

The best way to get a good outcome for consumers is to ensure that consumers understand what they are paying and can vote with their feet and move to banks that offer better value for money.

To achieve this outcome, we launched a market study in April 2007 to consider the wider questions about competition and value for money in the provision of personal current accounts, such as:

• transparency of costs to consumers
• ease of switching.

In parallel we also launched an investigation into the fairness of personal current account unauthorised overdraft charges and returned item fees under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (UTCCRs) to establish whether these charges met the test of fairness.

These two areas of our work relating to personal current accounts are closely linked, however to make our website as user friendly as possible information on each can be found via the two separate links below.

See other OFT work in financial services. 
 

Further information

For consumer advice, information on specific consumer rights and to make a consumer complaint against a trader please contact Consumer Direct on 08454 04 05 06 or visit the Consumer Direct Website.

For all general enquiries and guidance on the OFT's personal current account work, please contact the OFT Enquiries and Reporting Centre on 08457 22 44 99 or email enquiries@oft.gsi.gov.uk. Please be aware that OFT cannot provide advice or assistance to individual consumers or traders.

To email the case team directly, contact retailbanking.study@oft.gsi.gov.uk or call Kate Farrow on 020 7211 8816.

Back to: Current market studies