Simple, reliable and stress-free

Simple, reliable and stress-free

Click here for the video version of this podcast.

The subject of this special anniversary podcast shares its special day with:

• The Mayflower setting sail for America in 1620.

• The introduction of First Class stamps by the Royal Mail in 1968.

• The UK government suspending Britain’s membership of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992.

All of these events happened on the 16th of September.

The 16th September 2023 is also a special day for me and all banking and payment geeks and to celebrate this special anniversary podcast we are joined by John Dentry from Pay.UK.

If you haven’t already guessed it then in this podcast we are celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the UK’s Current Account Switching Service (CASS).

With its promise to offer a simple, reliable and stress free switch to a new banking current account provider the UK was the first country in the world to offer a guaranteed seven day bank account switch.

With over 9.5million switches competed, over 140 million payments redirected from an old account to a new account, a 91% user satisfaction rating and (perhaps remarkably for banking and payments) 86% of users happy to recommend the service to a friend I think we can call the UK’s switching service a success!

This podcast feels very personal

You might ask why I’m so excited about CASS, well we all remember where we were for certain events - tragic events like 9/11, a certain football match or the birth of a child.

Well, on the 16 September 2013 I found myself in a “war room” watching the world’s first current account switching service go live – it went so well the “war room” was a very calm and quiet room.

Why was I in that room? At the time I was the CEO of Bacs, CASS’s first operator and was the custodian of the service for the first 5 years - that’s why this podcast feels very personal!

Congratulations on the 10th Anniversary of account switching in the UK to John Dentry and the team at Pay.UK.

CASS holds a special place in my heart and made a significant mark on my career.