MSE News: Switching bank accounts to be made easier

Making account switching trouble-free for customers by ensuring any incoming payments are automatically switched to a customer's new account, without the customer having to notify anyone paying in money, for example an employer, themselves

No, no, no, No, NO, NOOOOOOOOOO.

We have now totally lost the final control over where our salaries are paid if we switch banks.

How many twits does it take to be hoodwinked by the banks to pull this one off.

JuicyJesus wrote: »

I'd be intrigued to know how banks would find the contact details of BACS/FPS payers from other banks.

When you apply for a current account, you already give permission for your current bank to release those details to the new bank if you use the new bank's switching service.

I think I'll still be doing it the old-fashioned way. Consumers need more control over the process, not less.

chambta wrote: »

What, currently? Not with RBS/Natwest you don't.

When I transferred my current account from NatWest, the new bank got all my payments details from NatWest and then sent me a copy of the list to prove it.

Edit
This only happens currently when you use the new bank's switching service. At the moment you don't have to use the service but you can bet the banks will angling for a change to that.

chambta wrote: »

The comment was related to credits coming into accounts.

I had a savings account for which NatWest was a "linked account" (normally a linked account is the only account to which payments can be made from an account) - that incoming payment to NatWest was also diverted to the new bank. That one took me by surprise when I though the payment had gone missing in transit; it turned up in the new current account.

So payments into a switched account also seem to be switched along with the outgoing payments.