Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the (a) effectiveness and (b) impact on customers of the current account switch guarantee.

Competition and innovation is at the heart of the Government’s vision for UK financial services. We want our financial services industry to be the most competitive and innovative in the world, delivering greater choice and value for customers.

That’s why the Government established the 7-day Current Account Switch Service (CASS), to make it easier, quicker and more reliable for customers to switch current accounts. The service is free to use, comes with a guarantee to protect customers from financial loss if something goes wrong, and redirects any payments mistakenly sent to the old account, providing further assurance for customers. This means that customers are more able than ever to hold their banks to account by voting with their feet, and that banks are incentivised to work hard to retain their existing customers and attract new ones.

The Current Account Switch Service has completed over eight million switches since launch and has processed over 120 million payment redirections. The Service also continues to meet its targets: in Q1 2022 it exceeded its awareness and satisfaction targets at 76% and 90% respectively.