Personal current accounts in the UK

There is widespread concern about whether current accounts provide value for the UK consumer, and in particular whether unauthorised overdraft charges and returned item fees are fair.

The best way to get a good outcome for consumers is to ensure that consumers understand what they are paying and can vote with their feet and move to banks that offer better value for money.

To achieve this outcome, we launched a market study in April 2007 to consider the wider questions about competition and value for money in the provision of personal current accounts, such as:

• transparency of costs to consumers
• ease of switching.

In parallel we also launched an investigation into the fairness of personal current account unauthorised overdraft charges and returned item fees under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (UTCCRs) to establish whether these charges met the test of fairness.

These two areas of our work relating to personal current accounts are closely linked, however to make our website as user friendly as possible information on each can be found via the two separate links below.

See other OFT work in financial services

Back to: Current market studies