Northern Ireland banking

26 May 2005

Following a super-complaint by the General Consumer Council of Northern Ireland and Which? on 15 November 2004 on personal current account banking in Northern Ireland, the OFT has now referred this market to the Competition Commission for further investigation.

There are features of the PCA market in Northern Ireland which the OFT suspects restrict competition, and which warrant further investigation by the CC. There is a high level of concentration in the market and the OFT has found evidence of behaviour among the four largest banks leading to, or demonstrating, weak competition between them. For example:

• they impose a number of charges when customers are in credit and overdrawn which are not found in the rest of the UK (and there are no offsetting advantages such as higher interest payments on positive balances)
• they do not actively compete on price and there is evidence of parallel pricing behaviour among them, and of possible price leadership and price signalling
• they do not actively compete for customers switching accounts.

In addition there appear to be low levels of switching by customers, both between rival banks and to alternative accounts within the same bank.

Download The OFT's reasons for making a reference (pdf 253 kb)
See OFT press release

Further information

Download full response to the super-complaint (pdf 74kb)
Download consultation paper (pdf 127kb)
See OFT press release (11 February 2005)
See OFT statement (15 November 2004)

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