Number of people switching current accounts drops

The latest figures for the Current Account Switch Service show that during the last 12 months a total of 1.01 million switches were completed, with 208,387 switches recorded in the last quarter alone (October – December 2016).

However, this was 23,500 fewer switches than took place a year earlier.

The decrease comes despite consumer awareness of the current account switching service reaching a record high in November, the figures from payments body Bacs showed.

Over 3.5 million (3,520,190) successful switches have taken place since the service, which aims to take the hassle out of moving current accounts, launched in 2013.

Bacs said that in November 2016 awareness of the switching service reached a record high, with 78 per cent of people saying they had heard of it, up 20 percentage points since the service launched in 2013.

The final quarter of 2016 also saw Bacs appoint Jo Kenrick as the first independent chair of the Current Account Switch Service Executive Committee.

The move fulfilled one of the undertakings set out by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), following its investigation into the personal current account market.