The Daily Mail reports that 13,000 a customers a day switch banks in backlash over penalty fees. Apparently competition in the UK is heating up:
Record numbers are switching banks as anger mounts over penalty fees and the big five battle to win new customers. As many as 12,700 customers a day will dump their current account provider - around 2.29 million have done so in the last six months. The rate is increasing, according to a survey by MoneyExpert.com, with an extra 453,100 moving accounts in the three months to the end of March, compared to the previous quarter.
So much for the good old consumer unions complaints that banks don't compete and switching is difficult. Practice tells a different story (although check bouncing fees are a bit of an odd thing; we don't have them here in the Netherlands and don't misuse them to generate income).
Accidently, while browsing around this item, I also stumbled into this interesting Money Blog. With a horrible story on how Barclays treats/cold calls its customers. Which might suggest they indeed are a good fit for ABN AMRO.. ;-)
