Since its launch in September 2013 the UK’s Current Account Switching Service (CASS) has performed a total of 8 million switches. The purpose of CASS is that by making switching our bank account hassle free a competitive market place would be created where the providers of the UK’s bank accounts will innovate, differentiate and compete for our day to day banking requirements.
With quarterly (in arrears) data published on almost all of the current account providers we can see which banks are winning the nation’s bank accounts (as measured by those that use CASS) and which banks are seeing customers transfer their day to day banking elsewhere - all helpfully listed in a “Top 20” chart for easy reference.
Current account switch winners and losers for Q4 2021 (Alphabetical)
Pay.UK publish participant CASS data a quarter in arrears so the latest data provides an insight to switches completed in Q4 2021:
Of the 47 brand participants only 6 brands recorded a net gain of accounts (note: a number of brands are included in a catch all ‘low value participant’ category which recorded 378 gains and 1202 losses so it is possible that an individual brand or two also made a small net gain).
Current account switch winners and losers for Q4 2021 (“Top 20”)
Pay.UK publish the winners and losers information in alphabetical order but sorting based on net gains/losses provides an interesting picture of winners and losers on an individual brand level:
Top 20 by Brand
Santander: +36,494
Nationwide: +33,691
Starling Bank: +10,364
Monzo Bank Limited: +3,068
Triodos Bank: +642
Danske: +98
Ulster Bank: -133
Bank of Scotland: -140
Halifax: -342
Bank of Ireland: -562
RBS : -1,435
NatWest: -1,804
AIB Group (UK) p.l.c.: -2,181
Lloyds Bank: -2,677
Co-operative: -4,235
Virgin Money: -8,367
Barclays: -11,669
TSB: -13,911
HSBC: -14,875
Tesco Bank: -20,278
Top 3 by banking group
Pay.UK publish the winners and losers information in alphabetical order by brand but sorting based on net gains / losses by banking group has previously provided a different picture.
However for Q4 the top three by group are again unchanged – i.e.
Santander: +36,494
Nationwide: +33,691
Starling Bank Limited: +10,364
Bottom 3 by banking group
At the other end of the table the picture is also unchanged by group:
19. HSBC: -14,875
20. Tesco Bank: -20,278
Net end user inflows are typically influenced by customer switching incentives and, in recent times, a need for many end users to switch away from Tesco and M&S, which closed their current account offerings.
Tesco Bank exited the Current Account Switch Service in the final quarter of 2021. This will be the final dashboard with Tesco Bank reflected in this table.
With 15% of current account holders actively considering switching, the service performance and consumer satisfaction point to the likelihood that the CASS service will continue to play its part in stimulating a competitive current account market in the UK.
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