MSE News: Banks pledge to provide data that may help you find your perfect account

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Former_MSE_Helen
Former_MSE_Helen Posts: 2,382 Forumite
edited 17 March 2014 at 8:11PM in Budgeting & bank accounts
"Major banks have pledged to provide current account data in a standard format. The government hopes it will encourage new comparison sites that could help consumers check if they're getting the best deal."
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Banks pledge to provide data that may help you find your perfect account

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  • innovate
    innovate Posts: 16,217 Forumite
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    edited 17 March 2014 at 7:09PM
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    Following in the footsteps of the 7-day switching guarantee, this sounds like yet another attempt to convince people that they should only ever want one current account. If so, it would be disappointing to see MSE support the initiative but it would obviously be good if all the key features of each current account could be found in a single table on a website. Why do we need George Osborne for this?
  • Herbalus
    Herbalus Posts: 2,634 Forumite
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    I don't understand. I could draw up a table of all the current accounts and list their fees, interest and benefits in columns. What exactly is the big government innovation here??
  • Archi_Bald
    Archi_Bald Posts: 9,681 Forumite
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    It usefully serves to divert attention from really pressing problems, such as people having unfettered free access to their credit files, or making banks to clearly display the applicable interest rates against all accounts, incl the ones with 0% interest.
  • Eco_Miser
    Eco_Miser Posts: 4,708 Forumite
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    And what's this about sharing customer's data? I want my financial (and other) data kept private.
    Eco Miser
    Saving money for well over half a century
  • JimmyTheWig
    JimmyTheWig Posts: 12,199 Forumite
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    Herbalus wrote: »
    I don't understand. I could draw up a table of all the current accounts and list their fees, interest and benefits in columns. What exactly is the big government innovation here??
    Yes, easy to list benefits and costs for each account.
    But how do you know how those benefits and costs affect you personally? E.g. how many days in a year do you go overdrawn and by how much? What is your daily balance to apply in-credit interest to? How many months through the year do you qualify for a benefit? Etc...
  • miller
    miller Posts: 1,630 Forumite
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    I received a "duplicate" (never received the original) closure statement for a Nationwide ISA the other day. That could have done with being in a normal format, let alone a standard format. Each entry was multiplied to about 4 lines with varying different abbreviations provided on 3 sheets of A4.
  • Archi_Bald
    Archi_Bald Posts: 9,681 Forumite
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    JimmyTheWig wrote: »
    Yes, easy to list benefits and costs for each account.
    But how do you know how those benefits and costs affect you personally? E.g. how many days in a year do you go overdrawn and by how much? What is your daily balance to apply in-credit interest to? How many months through the year do you qualify for a benefit? Etc...

    errm, you use your brains to figure out what applies to you?
  • Archi_Bald
    Archi_Bald Posts: 9,681 Forumite
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    miller wrote: »
    I received a "duplicate" (never received the original) closure statement for a Nationwide ISA the other day. That could have done with being in a normal format, let alone a standard format. Each entry was multiplied to about 4 lines with varying different abbreviations provided on 3 sheets of A4.

    is this in the wrong thread?
  • JimmyTheWig
    JimmyTheWig Posts: 12,199 Forumite
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    Archi_Bald wrote: »
    errm, you use your brains to figure out what applies to you?
    So you think it would be relatively easy to work out how much interest you would earn over the course of a year with, say, the Santander 123 account?
  • JKSandy
    JKSandy Posts: 711 Forumite
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    George Osborne and co should be looking to teach children at School about personal financial management.
    All that glitters is not gold.
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