MSE News: Banks' loyal customers are a 'captive audience', regulator warns...

Former_MSE_Callum

A major review of the banking sector by the financial regulator has warned that established banks have a "captive audience" of loyal customers who are losing out because they are reluctant to switch or shop around for financial products...

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'Banks' loyal customers are a 'captive audience', regulator warns - if you're unhappy, switch'

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JuicyJesus

Problem being that most people simply do not care as their bank, and their savings account at that, is a utility to them rather than something to obsess over and it's still overall much simpler having a savings account with the same bank you hold a current account with.

ceredigion

The FCA report found that current account customers tend to automatically go with their provider when they get other banking products, rather than shopping around.
It found, for example, that:

52% of personal current account customers with credit cards have one with their personal current account provider
48% of personal current account customers with personal loans have one with their personal current account provider
32% of personal current account customers with mortgages have one with their personal current account provider.

The %'s quoted would suggest that the "report" is a load of tosh.

18cc

Well bless my whiskers are no s*** Sherlock I would never have believed it

Ectophile

"Challenger bank" - that would be a bank you've never heard of before, with no branches anywhere near you, and which only offers postal or internet accounts.


In return for sending all your money to a bank you don't know, you get a fraction of a percent more interest.

Shakin_Steve

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Problem being that most people simply do not care as their bank, and their savings account at that, is a utility to them rather than something to obsess over and it's still overall much simpler having a savings account with the same bank you hold a current account with.

Agreed. And why would I shop around to save a few quid a month on a loan repayment when all I have to do is click on a pre-approved loan link with my current account provider, and the money is in my account in five minutes? No form filling, no searches, no waiting for 'approval'.

boo_star

Sorry but being loyal doesn't make someone "captive." They have a choice, even if they don't exercise it.

robin58

The FCA report found that current account customers tend to automatically go with their provider when they get other banking products, rather than shopping around.
It found, for example, that:

52% of personal current account customers with credit cards have one with their personal current account provider
48% of personal current account customers with personal loans have one with their personal current account provider
32% of personal current account customers with mortgages have one with their personal current account provider.

Well I have none of these with any of my current account providers, so what percentage am I ?

I may have been with my banks for sometime but they work for me, I'm not a 'sweated asset' for my bank to make money out of.

Shakin_Steve

Headline in the Daily Fail this morning: 'The death of free banking'. Do these morons really think that banking was ever 'free'? How do they think that the banks pay staff wages and other overheads? By skillfully investing our money to make huge profits?
If you go into a supermarket to buy a tin of beans, they will try to flog you some bread and eggs and butter to go with them.
If you decide you would like all of this but don't have enough money, they'll even flog you a credit card.

Headline in the Daily Fail: 'The death of free supermarket shopping '.

Shakin_Steve

Perhaps that wasn't the best analogy, but my point is this: Banking is a business like any other business and, now that retail banking has been split from investment banking, it has to make a standalone profit. That's life.

JuicyJesus

It does continually stun me that people not only expect banking to be free of charge, but that they also expect the money for this to come out of the ether.

No overdraft charges, no banking charges, no packaged accounts, no cross-selling, no mixing of retail banking and investment banking (although granted that last one is for a decent reason), must have lots of branches, must let people do as they please and do things the most expensive ways possible without charging for them... where exactly is the bank's running cost supposed to be funded from, let alone the profit that makes actually engaging in the sector worthwhile?

The best way forward IMO - but one that won't actually get any traction because the Mail will whinge about "waaa people using cash and cheques shouldn't be penalised for doing expensive things" - is to operate personal accounts on the same lines as some business accounts. You don't use branches and do everything online, you pay minimal charges; you use branches and cash and cheques heavily, you'll be on a different tariff where you pay for these services. That way the people who incur the most cost pay the most in charges.