Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions he has had with the Markets and Competition Authority on the introduction of a cap on overdraft charges for personal current accounts; and if he will make a statement.

Treasury ministers and officials meet regularly with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to discuss relevant regulatory issues. As was the case with previous administrations, it is not the Treasury's practice to provide details of all such discussions.

The government is committed to increasing competition in banking and welcomes the CMA’s final report on its retail banking market investigation as an important step towards the goal of a highly competitive banking system. It is the CMA’s role to review the market, assess how effectively competition is working and, where appropriate, propose remedies to address any issues. That is why we set up the CMA as a single, stronger and independent competition regulator.

The CMA proposed a series of remedies in its final report to improve overdraft transparency, including requiring banks to set a monthly maximum charge for unarranged overdraft charges.

The government welcomed the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) response to the CMA’s investigation. In its response, the FCA committed to look in more detail at overdrafts from both a consumer and competition perspective, as part of its broader review of the high-cost credit market.